Crux Redux
by Alexa Piper
Summary: They've been keeping him in the dark all his life. When Danny finally learns the truth he's not exactly thrilled, and definitely not ready to comply. Revelation fic with a twist. No PP. Crossposted to AO3.
1. Catalyst

They always came after the sun had left.

Maddie was sitting at the table, fingers still loosely curled around an empty mug while her other hand flipped to the next page of _Scientific American._ It was a special ghost edition, and there was no way she was letting it disappear into the abyss of Jack's to-read pile until she had studied every page.

A sound flicked against her thoughts, and she ignored it at first. It was probably just a bird or something… Maddie dragged herself away from the article on the theory of spectral physics as the sound came again, glaring at the kitchen window. She couldn't see much aside from her reflection in the glass, but then something shifted out there in the darkness. As a man leaned closer to the windowpane his face became clearer – tall and bald, with dark glasses that were always present no matter the hour of day. Behind him, dimly lit by the light from inside, was another vague figure.

Maddie pushed back her chair a little more forcefully then necessary, giving an exaggerated sigh. She stalked over to the window, unfastening the latch and swinging it open. "Would it kill you to use the door for once?" she snapped, stepping to the side so that her uninvited guests could hoist themselves through the opening.

"Negative," the one who had knocked stated in a dead tone as he dragged himself through the window face-first, hooking his fingers over the edge of the bench and pulling himself forwards. He slithered to the ground in an ungainly pile, before quickly righting himself and inspecting his white suit with a frown. Maddie smirked – it was smeared with peanut butter that she hadn't yet cleaned off the bench.

Jack entered the room and let out a groan as the other agent tried a feet-first approach, legs kicking wildly as his shoulders got stuck in the narrow window frame. Maddie smirked at her husband, before stepping towards the table and quickly folding down the corner of the page she had been reading. She shoved the magazine into a drawer of rarely-used recipe books – hopefully she'd have time to finish it later.

"It's late," Jack said, crossing his arms over his chest with a frown as the second agent finally wriggled himself into the room.

The first agent shrugged. He smoothed his peanut butter-smeared jacket before speaking. "The press has been overly active lately, so it is best if our visits are conducted at night."

"The press has only been more active because you guys have been chasing Phantom everywhere," Maddie retorted. She knew she was being hypocritical here, but lately the Guys in White had been taking things too far – they had actually released ghosts in the hopes of luring Phantom into a trap. High-powered ghosts, released in public with no way to control them! Hopefully, somebody lost their job over that one.

The first one shrugged again, and Jack snorted from across the kitchen. Agents K and O weren't exactly unusual guests in the Fenton home, although they _were_ unwelcome. K raised his eyebrows at Maddie's comment, looking over the rims of his glasses in an expression that felt mildly condescending. His eyes were the blue of a dying day, the way the sky looked after the sun had set but before the light was gone. The Fentons had taken to calling him 'Bright Eyes' behind his back, sharing their amusement at the reference. For some reason, Jack had dubbed the other agent 'Speckles,' and the name had stuck.

The room was quiet for a moment while Speckles latched the window shut again. Maddie raised her chin and picked up her dirty mug, moving purposefully towards the sink. She hated the way her skin crawled whenever these men forced their way into her home, and for the past few years she had tried her best to reassert her dominance over her living space by dictating when their conversation would begin. She wasn't going to play their games – if they wanted something, they had better speak up, otherwise she would just leave them standing there until she was ready to talk to them.

She turned the tap on and stuck her finger under the stream until it ran hot, before rinsing out her mug. A chair scraped on the floor, creaking with the tell-tale sound of Jack sinking into it. The agents were in her peripheral vision, and Maddie dripped some dishwashing liquid onto a sponge before swiping it over the surface of her mug. "Coffee, Jack?" she asked.

Their guests knew that she was not offering any to them.

"Nope, still full from that amazing dinner!"

Maddie gave a small nod, rinsing the suds off her now-clean mug before placing it on the drainer. She dried her hands on the front of her hazmat suit and sat back down at the table, finally turning to give the agents her attention.

Irritation was evident in the way they stood, stiff and scowling. It raised Maddie's mood just enough that she thought she might be able to get through whatever this conversation was going to be without shooting something.

Bright Eyes took a seat without further invitation, followed by his co-worker. With their glasses on they looked almost identical. Bright Eyes had a stockier and slightly taller frame, and Speckles' chin was more pointed, but that was about it when it came to differences.

Neither spoke, tilting their heads as though looking at each other for some sort of cue.

"What do you want?" Maddie demanded, her tone terse and clipped. She was too tired for this crap right now – a quick glance at her watch confirmed that it was after eleven. "If it's another sample, I swear – "

"Your willingness is certainly inspiring. However, we do not require anything of that nature today."

Maddie bristled, clenching her hands together on the tabletop to stop herself from shouting. Jack reached across, placing his hand over hers. The contact was instantly soothing, and Maddie took a slow breath, pushing past her anger. A fight wouldn't accomplish anything.

Bright Eyes continued as though he hadn't noticed her stress, "We are implementing a new procedure. You of all people are aware how difficult it can be for us to monitor hybrids, so a registration system is required." He paused as though waiting for something, but Maddie simply scowled at him. "So, from tomorrow night, we will begin the mandatory registration."

"Look," Jack sighed, "is this because of Vladdie? Because I really don't –"

"Plasmius is not the issue here," Speckles snapped.

"Then what _is_ the issue? It's not as though Amity Park is crawling with halfas." There it was, that unusual word. It was thick on Maddie's tongue, and she pursed her lips, uncomfortable with how… _uncomfortable_ she was to give voice to those two syllables.

It had been a long time since she had had a conversation like this.

Now it was Bright Eyes' turn to adjust his glasses. "There are more of them than you are aware of," he said. "In the past few years the number of half-ghosts has increased by fifty per cent."

Maddie scowled. "So… there were two but now there are three?"

The agents' silence was enough to answer her question.

"Who is it?" Jack asked, his voice catching as though it had clawed its way up his throat. "Who came out of the Ghost Zone?"

"I think you already know," Bright Eyes responded, and even though Maddie couldn't see his eyes she knew that he was staring at her. She felt like she was being studied, a specimen under a microscope or a rat in a cage. She fidgeted, fingers sliding over the grooves between each link in the band of her watch.

She knew who it was.

Jack seemed to have caught on as well. "You're really going to build an entire system for one teenager?" he demanded, raising an eyebrow. His hand found Maddie's again, pulling her fingers away from her watch and beginning to rub the stress out of her knuckles with gentle motions.

"Halfas are unpredictable."

Maddie glared at Speckles. "You can't say that," she snapped, anger rushing through her. "You can't just study two or three halfas and say that everyone has the same behavioural patterns."

"Halfas have proven to be… dangerous in the past."

Maddie stood abruptly, the chair almost falling behind her with the force. "What are you saying?" she shouted, heat sweeping across her face as her hands clenched into fists. If she could, she would have shot them, here and now.

The agents seemed unperturbed. "We meant Plasmius."

The heat in her face felt wrong. It always did, it shouldn't be hot – it should be so cold it _burned_ – and Maddie took a deep, shuddering breath. "You have ten seconds," she hissed. "What are you here for?"

Bright Eyes inclined his head. "We are here to remove your watch."

Maddie's gut clenched, and she braced herself against the edge of the table. "What?" She didn't like how small her voice had become.

Speckles stood, reaching out his hand. "Our system is enforced by a gun installed in the main square of the city," he explained. Maddie felt a tremor ripple through her as he rounded the table and closed his fingers over her left wrist. He held a tool in his hand, its end shaped to fit over the face of the watch that she had been forced to wear for decades. "If your ectosignature is inhibited by your suppressor, the gun may unintentionally target you. It will shoot anything with an ectosignature that isn't in its database. Quite an ingenious way to study all kind of spectres, including any unknown halfas..."

"And what about the others?" Maddie snapped, forcing herself to stay still as the tool clipped to her watch and Speckles began to twist it like a spanner.

"Plasmius is already registered."

"And Phantom?" Jack asked.

Maddie glanced at her husband. They had all already known, but for someone to finally say it was jarring. Phantom was not a ghost, but they had all danced around the topic for so long that it felt like nobody was ever going to acknowledge the truth.

Her watch clicked and fell away from her wrist, and Speckles stepped back, giving her space.

The room was silent again, just for a moment, and then Maddie gasped involuntarily. It was like taking off shoes that you had been wearing for hours that were too tight, or rolling over in bed because you got pins and needles – something _rushed_ through her veins like a strong winter wind, welling up from deep within her body, and every breath held that sharp, painful tang of breathing as hard as you could after sprinting in the snow, or surfacing and finally filling your lungs after they had been burning for air as you dove in deep water…

The rushing stopped, and Maddie was left clutching the edge of the table, drawing in deep, heavy breaths as her core pulsed with freedom. A thin layer of glittering ice spread beneath her fingers, unbidden but not unwelcome.

She finally looked up, and the first thing she saw was her reflection in the dark glass of the kitchen window. Her hair crackled white, like shooting stars that sparked in the night when she moved. Her skin was so pale, and her eyes… Her eyes were pools of green, glowing so brightly that their shape was blurred by the haze of spectral energy.

She swallowed. Another deep breath helped to ground her a little bit more, and the ice finally stopped spreading. By now it had covered almost the entire table. The agents were both standing now, Bright Eyes' hand resting on the gun strapped to his hip. It should have been threatening, but Maddie was satisfied by this display of fear. It was just a little, temporary thing, but seeing them out of their comfort zone for a change was refreshing.

"Spirit-"

"Don't even try to start calling me that again," Maddie said, finally peeling her hands away from the table. Jack was standing as well, a solid presence behind her back as she struggled to reign in her freezing core. All of a sudden she was starving, and she needed _space_ – the portal hummed downstairs, the endless expanse of the Ghost Zone calling to her. She pushed the thought away, pushing her core down at the same time. This was harder than it should be, and Maddie frowned. She pushed again, her core burning with frost and hunger, and slowly that familiar light wrapped around her and tucked her power back beneath her skin.

She swept frizzy auburn hair out of her eyes, breathing like she had just sprinted across town. Her ghost form was tied down again, not by the limiting watch but by her own will, and Maddie's face was slick with sweat from the effort. Jack had placed his hands on her shoulders at some point, steadying her, grounding her…

Bright Eyes looked amused, the corners of his mouth curving upwards ever so slightly. "The gun will activate tomorrow at midnight," he said. "Meet us there at eleven thirty. And Maddie… this isn't an excuse for you to start acting out. Just because your core is no longer bound doesn't mean that we aren't watching you."

With that, they turned to leave. Maddie frowned, her breathing still uneven and her hands still shaking. They were missing something –

"Wait," Jack called as Bright Eyes swung the window open. "What about Phantom?"

The agent paused. "He will need to be registered for the gun to know not to shoot his ectosignature."

"And how do you plan to do that?" Jack scoffed. "You've never really been good at catching him in the past."

Neither of them answered, and Maddie's thoughts couldn't seem to catch up. "Wait," she said as Speckles hauled himself up onto the counter and stuck his legs through the window. "What will the gun do if Phantom isn't registered?"

Speckles didn't say anything, and slid through the window without looking at her again. Bright Eyes pulled himself onto the bench, and Maddie lurched forwards, closing her fingers around his wrist. Everything seemed to go still, and Maddie could see her reflection in his dark glasses.

Bright Eyes pulled out of her grasp, pushing himself through the window as though he hadn't heard her. Maddie stood there for a moment, staring into the darkness, when a voice filtered through the night. "You have twenty-four hours to warn him."

A cloud passed overhead, cutting off the moon's dim light, and they were gone.

 **An old fic of mine redone but also not… I guess this is what Crux would have been if I had actually known anything about writing.**


	2. Shivers

Sleep was impossible.

No matter how much she repositioned herself, Maddie could not get comfortable. Her veins buzzed with power, thoughts kicking into high gear as though adrenaline had been poured into her system. Ectoplasm tended to do that to you – after all, it _was_ the closest a physical substance could get to being pure energy.

For over twenty years she had been bound. The inhibitor in that watch had suppressed the ectoplasm in her system so thoroughly that she hadn't even been able to feel her core, and now, with power rushing through her bones, it took every ounce of effort for Maddie to keep herself from clawing her skin off.

Next to her, Jack snored as he always did, blissfully asleep and oblivious to his wife's discomfort. The alarm clock on the bedside table glowed a dim red, and Maddie sighed. It was already four thirty in the morning, and she had to be up by seven to make sure Danny got to school.

Thoughts of Danny led her to think of another teenager. How were they supposed to find Phantom? She had to warn him.

The ghost boy had been a bit of a dilemma for the Fentons lately. They knew he used their portal, but they could never catch him doing it. They knew he drank the ectoplasm from their filters, but there was no evidence that it was him. They knew he would sneak through their home, invisible and silent, but none of their specialised equipment had picked up more than a brief ectosignature.

His breathing was always loud during fights, and when he bled there was something dark mixed with the glowing green. He would disappear from their sensors like a light switching off, his core obviously insulated by a living body. Sometimes they would overhear him grumble about interrupted sleep, or a ruined assignment, or missing out on a movie thanks to a ghost attack.

It was obvious when you took the time to look. They _knew_ that he was a halfa, but had no way to prove it.

And now they had to figure out a way to contact the kid before that gun in the middle of town blasted him out of the sky.

Maddie rolled over with a groan. How should she approach this? Fly through the sky calling Phantom's name? Put banners up all over town asking him to meet them? Plaster their lab with notes in the hope that he would use the portal before midnight? None of these plans sounded very successful, and Maddie rubbed her eyes in frustration. They stung with exhaustion, and she decided to settle down and really try to get some sleep.

Her feet were cold.

Sighing, Maddie sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her toes quested in the dark, nudging against fluffy green slippers. She put them on, grateful for the warm softness, and quietly got to her feet. It was starting to get cold at night, and she pulled on a dressing gown before leaving the room. Before all of this, before ever deciding to leave the Ghost Zone or agreeing to have her powers bound, she had never felt the cold. Now it was inside her as much as without, and Maddie knew that it would take some time to adjust.

Out in the dark hallway a light shone through the crack beneath Danny's door. Maddie's frustration mounted, and she strode into her son's room. "Do you have any idea what time it is?" she hissed.

Danny was slumped at his desk, head down and motionless. His breathing was deep with sleep, a slight snore rasping with each inhalation. The sight tugged at her heart, and Maddie crossed the room, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Come on," she said, "time for bed."

She frowned when her core pulsed, cold washing through her as she squeezed her son's shoulder. "Danny?" she whispered, fear gripping her chest. This couldn't be right… Her core must be acting up after so long without functioning.

And yet her ghost sense buzzed, her fingers tingling from the close proximity to the ectoplasm that rushed through Danny's veins.

Maddie swore before she could stop herself, pulling her hand back sharply. Danny took a shuddering breath, his eyelids fluttering before sinking back down into stillness.

Horror began to build within her. How had he activated his core? What had he been _doing…_? Her thoughts slid into place, and Maddie's world stopped. _Three_ halfas – Maddie, Vlad, and…

She shook her head, trying to clear it. She couldn't just guess that her son was Phantom, she needed to see it for herself. She could have it all wrong – her core could just be sensitive after being bound for so long, and reacting to the inactivated core that her son had inherited from her.

She placed her hand on his shoulder again and gave it a gentle shake. "Danny?"

His forehead scrunched as he mumbled something, and through his shirt Maddie felt his skin lose all warmth. His breath was visible for one long exhalation, and she snatched her hand back for a second time.

Maddie's contact had undeniably triggered a ghost sense in her son.

Danny stirred, taking a sharp breath that signalled his transition to wakefulness. "Where's the ghost?" he mumbled.

"No ghost," Maddie said, reaching out to touch him again but stopping before she could, hands hovering around his shoulders. Instead, she changed her course and closed the physics textbook that was lying beside his head. "You fell asleep studying. Your back's going to be killing you in the morning."

Danny sat up properly with a groan, interlocking his fingers and stretching his hands above his head. "Thanks," he said, dropping his arms and getting to his feet. "What time is it?"

"About four thirty," Maddie responded, busying herself by searching for a set of pyjamas. Her heart skipped a beat when, tucked in the drawer beneath them, she noticed a Fenton thermos.

"Mum, I can get those," Danny said, moving towards her. He stopped when he saw the revealed contents of the drawer.

Maddie curled her fingers around the smooth cylindrical surface, lifting it out of the drawer. It wasn't actually that smooth, now that she saw it in proper light – the thermos was dented in places, its surface pitted and gouged with what looked like claw marks.

Danny suddenly seemed _very_ uncomfortable. "Uh… Well, I carry that to stay safe?"

She simply raised an eyebrow, and Danny didn't seem to know what to do with his hands – he clenched and unclenched his fingers, his breathing short and choppy. The fear rolled off him in a sudden overwhelming _wave_ , and Maddie felt her own breathing hitch. She dropped the battle-scarred thermos as her core reeled with the unexpected emotional hit, and it hit the carpet with a dull thud.

They both stared at each other, Danny's fear dropping back to a muted throbbing laced with a confused undertone, and Maddie knew that he was responding to the distress that buzzed through her body.

The communication was somewhere beyond the physical plane, and with every second of silence the confusion from Danny mounted.

Maddie forced her thoughts to swim through her shock, bending down to pick up the thermos. "Butterfingers," she said, smiling and offering the item to her son. "That's what I get for not sleeping tonight. You should put this in your schoolbag if you want it to be there when you need it."

As he took the thermos from her, she made sure that their fingers didn't touch. There was one thought that she just couldn't move past – Danny was scared... Of _her._

Maddie pushed the thought away as her son stowed the thermos in his backpack. Still, if he _was_ Phantom, there was something that she needed to say now, while she still had the chance. She just didn't know how to start…

Danny frowned at her. "Uh, Mum? You're spacing out."

He was wary, and she had no clue what to say. "I'm just tired," she responded, trying to give a comforting smile.

He didn't seem convinced.

The silence stretched, and Maddie knew she had to say something. "Do you know Phantom?"

Danny scowled. "Everyone knows Phantom." His emotions spiked again, panicked and confused.

"I'm trying to contact him," she confessed. Transparency was best right now, even if it meant saying things she wasn't ready to say. Wherever the conversation went, she needed to tell Danny enough to keep him safe. "The Guys in White were here earlier to tell us about new ghost security and we wanted to warn him."

Danny's expression was unreadable, but his unrestrained emotional output was a mess of anxiety. "Phantom's never been caught by their stuff before," he said, and reached around his mother for the forgotten pyjamas. Maddie shifted, careful that he didn't touch her.

"This security system targets half-ghost hybrids."

Danny jolted back as though burned, eyes snapping to meet hers. "You said that those aren't real."

There was something about the way he had started to tremble that unsettled her, more than simply feeling his emotional state with her core. "They're not scientifically proven in the public eye, but…" she trailed off, unsure what to say. Danny's eyes were wide, breathing catching in short staccato bursts. He had shifted the way he was standing, as though preparing to defend himself from some sort of physical onslaught.

Maddie's heart ached as his terror washed over her. "Oh, Honey," she sighed, reaching across and finally closing a hand around his wrist. Her body chilled at the contact, and a visible shiver ran through her son's limbs. The ghost sense for physical contact was different when it was a halfa – when someone was overshadowed, you could feel the separate energy forces from the ghost's core and the human's heart, but for halfas the sensation became a smooth blend of heart and core beating together. Touching like this, skin-to-skin, they both felt the exact same thing.

The colour drained from Danny's face. "Enough," he hissed, eyes darting to her wrist. "You're not my mum."

Maddie struggled to push past the hurt that bloomed within her. Danny obviously felt her emotion, face twisting in confusion. "My mum always wears a watch," he ground through gritted teeth. "Pretty good job, but not good enough."

Maddie released his arm and he stepped back, opening up the space between them. She raised her wrist in a slow movement, angling it so that the light caught her skin. "I took it off," she said, a strip of skin white from lack of sunlight. "It was a limiter, and the Guys in White needed it off so that their fancy new system didn't attack my suppressed ectosignature."

Again, they stood there in silence. Danny seemed ready for a fight, his hands fisted and feet slightly apart. Maddie read all this and tried her best to look non-confrontational. She dropped her arm and hugged her dressing gown tight around herself. Her toes curled inside her slippers, and she sighed when Danny showed no signs of breaking this strange stand-off.

The sound seemed to do the trick. "You're a halfa," Danny breathed. "I could feel it in your skin."

Maddie met his gaze. He was still scared, sure, but that had toned down a bit now. Instead, something else was seeping through his shock – something raw and powerful. "Yes," she said simply.

Danny's mouth hung open, brows furrowing when she didn't say anything else. His eyes glowed green with emotion. "That's it?" he hissed. "That's all you're gunna say?!" His volume mounted and anger radiated from him. "I've been so… so damned _scared_ that you were about to rip me into tiny pieces, I was _terrified_ that you'd shoot me out of the sky, wrap me up in a net and haul me down to the lab for your next experiment! I was scared of you every single day," he shouted, "every _single_ day! But here you are, and all this time you've been _exactly the same as me!_ " His breathing hitched, tears sliding down his cheeks, and Maddie couldn't have felt worse if her son had punched her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, hating how her voice caught. Her eyes were hot and full, and when she blinked, tears slipped free.

Something stirred on the other side of the wall, and Maddie knew that Danny's shouting had probably woken her husband. Moments later, Jack burst into the room with a guttural battle cry. "Where's the ghost?!" He brandished a massive blaster, finger hovering over the trigger.

Danny took a step backwards, hands flying up in a defensive gesture. The bright green glow bled from his eyes, dimming them back to their natural hue, but he hadn't been fast enough to hide it.

The gun whined as its sensor picked up on the energy in the air. " _Ectosignature identified. Core detected. Ready to fire._ "

"Jack!" Maddie shouted, throwing up her own hands and summoning a defensive shield. The room flashed bright with the gun's energy blast, which hit Danny's own shield and dissipated into wisps of light that dissolved like spent fireworks.

For a moment, the only sound in the room was three sets of heavy breathing. Smoke rose lazily from the barrel of the blaster, coiling past Jack's stupefied face and filling the room with a smell like burnt hair. "Dann-o?" he whispered.

Danny dropped his hands, the shield melting into nothingness with a faint crackle. He was still crying, and wiped his nose on his sleeve. "For once, you could wait before you shoot at me," he snapped.

Jack's hurt stabbed at Maddie's senses, and the gun drooped towards the floor. "You… You're…"

Danny shook his head, stepping back as his father tried to move towards him. "Stay back!" he shouted, hands up and defensive again.

Jack stopped. "Son–"

A loud sob was all that their son could seem to manage. Then, "Just leave me alone."

Danny clenched his eyes shut, a chill swept through the room, and then he was gone.


	3. Fissure

Teleportation still wasn't his strong suit. Breaking yourself down and squeezing your essence through the physical plane to another location was something that came naturally to a spectral core, but it tugged at Danny's human organs, wringing him like a sponge. Accuracy was especially difficult. Instead of his intended destination Danny reappeared in the middle of the street, six feet in the air and completely disoriented. Before he realised his predicament he was reclaimed by gravity. Vertigo swept over him in a dizzying wave and he smacked into the bitumen with a grunt, his hip and shoulder colliding first, followed by the side of his skull.

The streetlight smeared across the night as his vision blurred and Danny simply lay there, trying to gather his rattled thoughts. The air was quiet with the hush of that stillness just before the dark sky began to turn grey at the edges, and he drew in ragged breaths, squeezing his eyes shut and letting out a sob as things came rushing back to him. Everything was heavy, weighing him down and squeezing away everything unrelated to the events in his bedroom.

What the hell had just happened?

Puffing out his cheeks, he blew a steady stream of air through pursed lips. He was already trembling, whether from the sudden fall or from the panic of the last five minutes he didn't know, but everything inside him screamed that he was _hurt_.

Another sob, and Danny curled onto his side and clapped a hand over his mouth. His throat was clenched, tears began to squeeze past his eyelids, and pain welled up from somewhere deep within him. It washed over him in a wave, and suddenly he was weeping, curled up and shuddering with loud sobs in the middle of the street outside Tucker's house. On some level he was surprised at himself, but the stress had combined with something else, something far too tender to even begin to identify, and the emotions needed a way out. He knew _why,_ but admitting it would just make everything even worse.

He had to stop. He was surprised that he had even begun, and now Danny's head throbbed with the hot ache that comes from crying too much, and asphalt dug painfully into his exposed arms. He didn't need to be seen like this – everyone in town knew the Fentons by now, and the last thing he wanted was for some well-meaning early-morning jogger to call his parents because he was sobbing hysterically in the foetal position on a residential street.

He sat up, sniffing loudly. Cold fingers quested in the direction of his pocket, taking a couple of tries to find the opening before realising that it was empty. Danny frowned, checking his other pocket before dropping his shoulders with a quiet huff. Great. He didn't even have his phone with him.

He shakily got to his feet, having half a mind to just fly up to Tucker's room from where he was standing. The more rational part of his brain pushed through the haze, reminding him that all it would take was for one person to see him and he'd have a much bigger problem to deal with than just his parents.

Stupid secrets.

Dragging his feet, Danny moved into the relative cover between two parked cars. It wasn't much, but he really couldn't be bothered with anything else right now, and he crouched down before turning himself invisible.

He was _so_ tired, and that headache wasn't going away. Danny wondered which would use more energy at this rate – flying up and phasing himself through the wall, or invisibly walking up the three flights of stairs to the Foleys' apartment and phasing in that way. Both options sucked, in the way that any exertion was so beyond his tolerance right now, but Danny conceded that flying was faster and that the stairs would just make him feel more miserable.

He sniffed again, keeping himself out of the visible spectrum as he straightened up. Danny tilted his body into weightlessness, his centre of gravity shifting away from his feet and leaning instead on his core. He floated upwards slowly, like a sad helium balloon that was beginning to lose its buoyancy, pausing outside Tucker's room. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before passing through the brickwork like it wasn't even there.

It seemed like he wasn't the only one who had had a rough night.

Tucker was sprawled on top of his bed, glasses askew on his face and cheek resting against a page of what Danny recognised to be their physics textbook. The only light came from a small reading lamp, and scribbled sheets of loose paper were scattered around and beneath his friend's body. Tucker hadn't even taken off his shoes yet and Danny sighed, rubbing his eyes before shifting his gravity back to normal and landing to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Hey, Tuck," he whispered, gently shaking his shoulder.

Tucker didn't budge.

Danny grunted in exasperation and tried to grasp his paper-thin patience. This wasn't Tucker's fault, after all. He gave his shoulder another shake. "Tuck, I need to talk to you," he hissed.

When Tucker remained oblivious, Danny leaked a bit of cold from his core and felt it travel down his own arm and dissipate through the sleeping boy's skin.

Tucker jolted as though he'd been slapped. "Geroff!" he shouted, waving his arms at the rude awakening. They sailed harmlessly through Danny, who simply sat on the edge of the bed and waited for him to wake up enough that he was actually coherent.

Realising that he wasn't actually under attack, Tucker stopped slapping the air. Papers crunched beneath him as he sat up with a groan. "Dude," he grumbled as he straightened his glasses, "I told you to stop doing that." Frost flowers had bloomed across his arm where Danny's pulse of cold had made contact, and the boy scrubbed his hand over the ice vigorously.

Danny stayed quiet and Tucker blinked a couple of times, rubbing his eyes beneath his lenses before squinting at his friend. "Dude, what happened?" he breathed. "You look wrecked."

Danny inhaled sharply, biting down on his lower lip to try to stop it from its sudden trembling. He fisted his fingers in the covers, looking away from his friend and trying to calm down.

Tucker scooted closer, shoving paperwork onto the floor and putting a hand on his shoulder. "What happened?" he asked again, gentler this time. "Are you hurt?"

Danny didn't really know the answer to that, but he settled with shaking his head. The scrapes from his fall outside were already starting to heal, and his headache was _definitely_ from tears and not a concussion. Sure, he hurt, but it wasn't due to the fall.

It took a few more seconds for him to try to speak. "They found out," he whispered. The words were heavy, weighing him down and making it difficult to think beyond that simple earth-shattering fact.

Saying it made it more real, more definite, and Danny kept his gaze on Tucker's messy floor instead of looking at his friend. He could make out all sorts of things down there in the gloom, like the physics worksheets, a lone shoe, and peeking out from underneath more paper was an ectogun plugged into the charger in the dark alcove beneath Tucker's desk.

"Okay." Tucker radiated exhaustion, and maybe a bit of frustration. The emotions rubbed against Danny's senses and he hung his head, desperately holding back his tears. "Okay, let me call Sam. You got your phone?"

Danny shook his head but otherwise didn't move as Tucker began shuffling through the papers that surrounded them. Weary disbelief tugged at him from his best friend, and it weighed down on Danny's mind. He ignored it, hunching his shoulders and trying not to panic as thoughts of home began to rise to the surface.

Danny had planned what to do if his parents ever found out. Their strategy was pinned down to the finest detail – Tucker finding his phone with an exclamation and immediately calling Sam was simply part of the process. It was all carefully structured to minimise the risks, and lately he felt like it was also there to keep his two friends from losing their sanity.

He had never factored in the possibility of something like this. Sure, maybe he'd entertained thoughts of running into his deceased parents as ghosts sometime in the hopefully-distant future, and what he might do in that situation, but never had he even once entertained the notion that somebody else in his family could have ghost powers.

He had no clue what to do.

Sam's phone rang out twice before she answered, and even without speaker Danny could hear her, thanks to his heightened hearing.

 _"Do you have any idea what time it is?!"_

"The Fentons found out."

Tucker didn't need to elaborate, but his voice lacked any of the urgency that should have been there. And maybe Danny deserved it – there had been several close calls lately, a lot of false alarms, and he knew that they were getting tired of his constant panic. The boy who cried wolf and all that…

Her sigh was clearly audible from where Danny sat. _"For real this time?"_

"It doesn't matter," Tucker snapped, and Danny wondered if that spike in frustration was thanks to Sam or himself. "He's at my place, no phone with him, and he looks like an absolute mess. It's your turn to check out his house."

 _"I'll go as soon as the sun's up, say we have to study early to compare notes for our physics assignment since it's due today."_

"Thanks," Tucker said.

Sam simply hung up, and Danny frowned at the floor. Neither of them moved for a moment, and Tucker finally sighed, the mattress rising with sudden lack of pressure as he got to his feet. Grey light seeped around the edges of the curtains, and Tucker fished a towel out of the pile of clothes on his floor. "You wanna shower?" he asked.

Danny shook his head and Tucker sighed again, grabbing some clothes off the floor as well before heading towards the door.

"They really found out this time," Danny said.

Tucker paused, turning halfway to look back at his friend. His face was shadowed, and Danny couldn't make out his expression, but once again the lack of alarm was obvious. "Did they hurt you?"

Danny shook his head again, still not looking at his friend.

"What happened?"

He pulled his feet up onto the bed, curling in on himself and wrapping his arms around his knees. "I'll tell you when Sam gets here," Danny muttered. "I don't want to answer your questions twice."

Tucker shrugged and headed out of the room. His irritation had seeped away by now, and Danny tried not to be frustrated by the nonchalance he sensed in its stead. This happened all the time, of course they had gotten used to it.

Once the door had clicked shut, Danny swept the rest of the papers into a pile and placed them on top of the textbook before shifting to sit with his back leaning against the wall. A minute later the pipes behind the plaster shuddered and he closed his eyes, leaning his throbbing head back as well. Maybe if he just got ten minutes of sleep, this stupid headache would go away…

The wall throbbed as someone pounded on the bathroom door, and Danny grunted, sitting up properly again.

"Tucker, you've been in there for half an hour! Get out, or help pay the water bill!"

His head did feel clearer after that quick nap, and Danny yawned. The light that bled through the curtains was gold now, and he rubbed eyes that burned with exhaustion. His body felt like a worn-out punching bag with stuffing leaking from the seams, but at least that headache was gone. The pipes squeaked as the water shut off, and Danny glanced at Tucker's phone as the screen lit up with a chime.

The text displayed on the lock screen was from Sam – _At the park._

Unlocking the phone with the passcode that they all knew, Danny sent back a quick _Be there soon._

Footsteps approached the door, the wrong weight to be Tucker's, and Danny slipped out of the visible spectrum as Angela walked into the room. She paused as she stepped over the threshold, frowning at the paper and clothing strewn over the floor. She tugged her dressing gown closer before picking her way across the carpet, settling to sit on the edge of the bed. Danny drew his legs up as quietly as he could so that she didn't sit in his intangible limbs, and hoped that she wouldn't feel the cold that always flowed from him whenever he used his powers. He had read about nuclear meltdowns and radioactive waste and wondered if he was similar, but with bone-biting cold instead of bone-melting radiation. Sam had said something about him absorbing heat energy from the air, and that's why he _felt_ cold to everyone around him, but Tucker had just argued that ghosts can break whatever laws of physics they want.

Tucker's phone chimed from where Danny had dropped it back onto the bed, and Angela picked it up. Danny couldn't see her face but the sudden stress that rolled off her was more than enough to set his teeth on edge. Before he could try to see over her shoulder to read whatever the phone said, Tucker walked into the room. He stopped when he saw his mother there, nervous anxiety washing through the room.

"The Fentons called," Angela said by way of greeting. "Danny ran off about an hour ago."

"Oh, really?" Tucker said. He took a step towards the bed, frowning in an approximation of concern. Even without Danny's ability to sense emotions, the expression was clearly insincere.

"Really," Angela said, her tone clipped as suspicion laced the air. "He's not in your cupboard or hiding under your bed?"

Tucker shook his head, hands up in denial. "No, why would you-"

"I heard your voices," she informed him. Leaning over the edge of the bed, Angela swept aside the hanging blankets. "Come out please, Danny."

"Mum!" Tucker gasped. Fear filled the room, from both of them, and Danny felt like he'd been punched by its sheer intensity.

Angela sat back up, slowly, and Tucker visibly swallowed. "It's not what you think," he tried weakly. His hands had dropped, shoulders sagging, and exhaustion was suddenly etched on his face. It gathered in the deep crevasses beneath his eyes, in the tired looseness of his mouth, in the way that his hands hung limply by his sides.

Around her shoulder, Danny could see that Angela was how holding Tucker's phone in one hand and a sleek ectogun in the other. The phone chimed again, its screen automatically lighting up. Danny leaned forwards a little bit more, careful not to touch her, and saw two messages from Sam. The first one said _They found out,_ and the newest one said _I'm here._

Danny felt their secrets slipping through their fingers, and he shifted backwards again as Angela shivered. Tucker was looking over Angela's shoulder, gaze directed to where he probably knew that Danny was sitting. Danny turned his head visible, making a helpless expression before turning invisible again. Tucker seemed to draw some strength from the knowledge that Danny hadn't run out on him. "The Fentons gave it to me," he said. "Since there are so many ghost attacks they said that I needed to be able to defend myself."

Angela's mood shifted from sheer terror to something akin to relief, but it was stunted by disbelief. "Maddie wouldn't give you a gun."

Tucker shrugged. "She has in the past. Y'know, when there've been big attacks."

She stood up, and Danny shifted uneasily. He didn't like where this conversation was heading.

"Maddie might give you a gun during a fight, but never to keep," Angela responded. She hefted the weapon as though testing its weight. "This one looks far too powerful and expensive."

Tucker raised his chin, a spark of frustration worming its way past his anxiety. "Yeah, well, she did," he snapped.

Angela's stance was confident. "So I'll just call and ask her, hm?"

Tucker froze, mouth open as he was caught in his lie. "Well, uh," he stammered, "Danny actually gave it to me, b-but Mrs Fenton really did say that we could each have a weapon to defend ourselves from ghosts!"

Danny bit back a groan, working his lower lip between his teeth as his face drew into a scowl. Angela was one of those parents who could sometimes be pretty chill, but when she was concerned about something you could bet your life that she'd check the facts. He could already hear his parents grounding him for the rest of the year for giving his friends such high-grade weapons.

Angela's sigh was heavy. "Alright," she relented, and held out Tucker's phone. "Where are you meeting Sam?"

Tucker gave a shaky laugh. "Oh, that?" he said. "You see, we have a physics assignment due, and we were gunna meet and compare notes."

Angela tilted her head, and Danny wished he could have seen her face as her exasperation swelled over her son's anxiety. "Who found out what?" she asked.

Tucker took the phone, mouth tightening as he read the two messages on the screen. His eyes were shadowed as he looked down, tension obvious across his shoulders.

The lie was too slow this time. "She's talking about her parents finding out that she skipped class to go to a concert last week," he said.

Danny's core told him that Angela didn't buy it. "Tell Danny that I'll give him a day to sort out whatever's going on before I call his parents about this," she said. "And after your assignment is done, you're grounded for the weekend. Come straight home after school."

"Aw, man!" Tucker whined, tucking his phone into his pocket. "What for?"

Even without seeing her face, Danny knew that Angela would be raising an eyebrow at the question. "The gun," she snapped, "and for whatever lie you've just told me."

Tucker huffed, but had the sense to back down. Danny stayed where he was, the sheer awkwardness of the argument screaming for him to leave, but morbid curiosity trapping him in his seat. He wondered how much Angela had figured out, and what his mother had said to her on the phone, but appearing from nothing to ask her probably wasn't the best idea.

She left the room with the gun tucked in the crook of her arm, and as soon as the door clicked shut Danny threw himself off the bed. "Do you think she knows?" he hissed.

Tucker shrugged, fishing his schoolbag off the floor and beginning to shove papers into it. "Dude, you'd know better than me thanks to your emotion thing," he murmured.

Danny threw up his hands, more as an outlet for himself than to contribute to the conversation since he was still invisible. The last thing they needed was for Angela to open the door without warning and see him there. "I'm so stressed, I don't even know what to think anymore," he whispered.

Tucker turned to look at the empty space above where Danny's feet had just shifted some of the papers on the floor. "How did your parents find out?"

Danny's chest tightened as all the hurt rushed back in at once. He swallowed, trying to fight down the sudden overwhelming sense that his world was about to fall apart. "It's complicated," he said, trying not to think of how his mother's skin had felt against his own. "Let's just go meet Sam."

Tucker shouldered his bag. "I'll meet you downstairs," he said. "If my mum thinks I climbed out my window again she'll probably extend my grounding for a month."

Danny nodded even though nobody would be able to see it. "It can't be as bad as mine," he said. "The way things are going, I doubt I'll be free for the rest of the _year_."

Tucker shrugged. "Maybe your grades'll finally go up," he teased.

Danny grunted, turning visible and playfully blasting his friend with freezing air. Tucker squawked, rubbing his hands over his arms as Danny chuckled and floated back through the wall.


	4. Dawn

The park in the middle of town could most kindly be described by the word _minimalist._ Or maybe a battle zone would be more accurate. Ghost attacks had stripped the area of the majority of its vegetation, and the children's play equipment had chunks missing from its steel support beams. A running track snaked through garden beds that were spotted with craters, many of the holes suspiciously Danny-sized. The lawn was scorched in places, torn up in others, and any surviving trees were missing a good amount of foliage.

Still, it was better to fight over the park than cause needless damage to buildings, so Danny typically tried to steer altercations in that direction.

The lake in the middle was large enough to have an island – a misshapen lump of land with scraggly trees and far more weeds than grass. Sam met them on the banks, and Danny flew all three of them across the water to that little island. They could pretty much guarantee privacy here – the only people who really bothered to cross the lake were teenagers late at night who wanted to drink somewhere away from patrolling ghost hunters and police. Jack had been known to rope anybody he met into helping test his traps, and although nobody had ever been seriously hurt, there were enough incidents with glowing slime that people tended to stay away from places where the Fentons might turn up.

Unfamiliar scorch marks on the trees were also probably thanks to Valerie's target practice – Danny had seen the Red Huntress hanging around here on quiet nights, shooting at trees and sometimes doing her homework by the illumination from her hoverboard's headlights.

Danny placed his friends on the ground and kicked a few empty cans out of the way before sitting down. Sam and Tucker followed suit, exhaustion clear in their drawn faces and heavy sighs. Sam passed a coffee cup to Tucker. "Breakfast," she said, pulling a packet of Tylenol from her pocket and popping two pills from their blisters. "Painkillers and caffeine."

Tucker took them from her with a mumble of thanks, downing the tablets with a long swig from his drink. Danny couldn't stop the amused thought that Jazz would have been mortified. Sam took a sip from her own travel mug before unzipping her backpack and tossing him a cola can. "You too," she said. "You look like you're fading away."

Danny grunted and hooked a nail under the ring-pull, popping open the can. Muted green light shone through the small hole in a radioactive glow, an acidic scent sharp on the air, and Danny gratefully took a swig of the thick ectoplasm. It tasted a bit more metallic than when he drank it straight from his parents' filters, probably because it had started to absorb the aluminium from its container, but phasing it into soda cans gave him the advantage of being able to drink it whenever he needed to.

The first sip was always the best, sweet and electric like a battery against his tongue, and his veins lit up like fire. Painkillers didn't even hold a candle to this.

They sat there quietly for a moment, golden sunrise piercing through the shadows in bright beams around them. "So," Sam said, questing in her bag again and pulling out a lump of papers and a textbook that was far too damaged to be hers, "your mum gave me your physics assignment that you left on your desk."

Danny frowned, taking the pile from her and balancing it on his knees. Sam's emotions didn't give much away – her confusion and utter weariness chafed against his nerves. "What happened?" he asked.

Sam's forehead crinkled. "That's what I want to know," she responded. She leaned forwards, placing and elbow on one knee and resting her chin in her hand. "When I went to your place your dad didn't run to the door screaming about ghosts like he always does. Then your mum looked worse than you do, like she's been crying, and when I said that we were supposed to do our assignment together this morning she said you'd forgotten it and gave me your stuff. She asked me to tell you to come home once you've handed in your assignment."

Tucker shook his head, taking another long draught of his coffee. "That's not proof they found out."

Sam shrugged. "It's more than we've ever had before," she countered. "Since when does Mr Fenton not answer the door with a battle cry and a gun?"

"He could have been asleep," Tucker tried.

She gave a sharp shake of her head. "He's the one who answered."

They were growing increasingly tense, their stress grinding against Danny's and making him feel crankier. He closed his eyes and took another mouthful of ectoplasm, breathing deeply and waiting for it to settle his core. Accustomed to this, his friends waited in silence. After a handful of heartbeats he felt more grounded, opening his eyes and trying to ignore the hurt that burned within him. "I told you they found out," he said. They both watched him, and he was acutely aware of the way the skin around their eyes sagged and how lines drew angles from the corners of their mouths.

His secret had taken such a toll on all three of them that he felt a tiny spark of relief at it finally nearing its end.

Their curiosity mingled with anxiety, and he made a concerted effort to draw back into himself. His emotions were raw enough without being swept up in theirs as well.

At the thoughts of the past hour, Danny didn't even know where to start. He was still so confused himself, and the hurt that burned within him was suddenly identifiable – betrayal. His parents had lied to him in such a fundamental way, and it had shaped his every thought over the few years that had transpired since everything began with that portal.

The emotional pain threatened to choke him, and Danny took another swig of ectoplasm before trying to explain what happened. "I fell asleep at my desk doing this stupid assignment," he said, gesturing to the papers on his knee like he could pin all of the blame on that. There was the irrational urge to shoot ectoblasts from his eyes to burn the paper to nothing – Tucker called it laser vision, despite Danny's protests that it really was ectoplasm – but he knew that he was being irrational. It wasn't his assignment's fault, and it wasn't really his fault either. "My mum woke me up at about four thirty so I could go to bed, and she went to get something out of my drawer and found the thermos there. Then…" he swallowed, throat suddenly catching as his body heated up. He forced back what felt like a sob, a stifled painful noise working its way out of him as he blinked back the tears that rushed from beneath his eyelids.

"Did she shoot at you?" Sam demanded as Danny struggled to find words again. "Are you hurt?"

Danny shook his head, breathing in short bursts through his nose. He took a shaky sip of his drink, grateful that they both sat and waited for him to continue. He pushed through the hurt, through the shock and sheer disbelief of what had happened. "She grabbed my hand," he rasped. "She was cold, and… I could feel a core." The words were strangled, and he had to force them out into the open. Saying them made everything far more real, and he couldn't stop the tears from spilling over and dripping down his face.

"She's overshadowed?" Tucker asked. His alarm was evident, and Danny could hear his friends' heartbeats quicken at the thought. Maddie always had so many weapons on her person, so her being overshadowed was a terrifying notion.

Danny shook his head, feeling absolutely miserable. The can crunched in his grip, and he put it on the ground next to him before he could squeeze it badly enough to spill the remaining ectoplasm. "She didn't feel like a ghost," he said, "her core and heart were beating together. A ghost can't fake that."

Tucker frowned. "Is that supposed to mean something bad? Is she… dead?"

He forced the words through gritted teeth. "She's a halfa."

The silence lasted for several seconds, and then their shock melted into exasperation and disbelief. Danny felt even more hopeless as this brushed against his bitterness.

"Dude," Tucker began, the lines around his eyes softening as pity rolled off him, "that's not possible."

"You were probably still half asleep," Sam said. "It's most likely just one of the regulars trying to ruin your life again. My bet's on Spectra."

Danny shook his head, trying to fight down the frustration that continued to build. "Why can't you guys believe me?!" he snapped. Ice creaked through his veins, building in his face, and he knew that his eyes would be glowing by now. His freckles probably were as well, judging from how cold he felt. His tears froze on his cheeks in an instant, and everything rushed out of him as he began to shout. "She felt like Vlad and Dani! No other person has ever felt like that, no matter who overshadowed them! And then she admitted it, that she's a… like me… and said that the Guys in White made her wear a limiter or something, but they took it off for a new system! And then Dad came in because we were shouting and did his typical guns blazing entry, and both of us made a ghost shield! And I'm so _sick_ and _tired_ of you guys not believing me when I tell you that something's going on!"

Clenching his teeth, Danny forced himself to take a deep breath. He picked up his can again, drinking the rest in one go without looking at his friends. He didn't need to see their faces anyway – the air buzzed with their shock at his outburst.

A sudden breeze flicked dead leaves across the ground, threatening to carry away the papers still balanced on his knee, and Danny sighed as he felt the pressure behind his eyes begin to settle. "Sorry," he mumbled, dropping the empty can back onto the ground.

Sam picked the can up from where he had tossed it, crushing it the rest of the way and shoving it into a pocket of her backpack. "Okay," she said, "so let's see if we got that straight. Your mum woke you up, she found the thermos in your drawer, and then you felt her core when she touched you and your dad ran in when you started yelling and tried to shoot you both. Yeah?"

Danny nodded, fiddling with the corner of one of his pages. The paper began to wear under his touch, like fabric that frayed at the edges when you bent it too much. "Yeah," he echoed.

Tucker rubbed his eyes behind his glasses. "So, does she know that you're Phantom?"

Danny shrugged. "It wasn't a great conversation," he admitted. "She was asking about Phantom but I thought she was overshadowed, so she explained how she wasn't. She realised that I'm a halfa at the same time and so I just started screaming at her because I was so… I'm just so… Y'know." He shrugged again, biting on his lip as the pain swelled in his chest until every breath felt like someone was squeezing him from the inside out.

Tucker mirrored the shrug. "I'd be pissed too, man," he said. "How long's she been a halfa?"

"I don't know," Danny mumbled. "I just sort of yelled at her for all the hunting and stuff, and for never telling me, but Dad came in before we could actually talk. I never said that I was Phantom either, so I don't know if it was clear enough for her to figure it all out."

"And then you ran off," Sam supplied.

"Would you have stayed with my dad pointing a gun at your head?" Danny snapped with a glare.

She rolled her eyes. "Scary Eyes me all you want, ghost boy, but I'm just trying to figure out what happened."

"You're not helping," Danny grumbled.

"Stop picking fights with us," she snapped back. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you, okay? But we both got out of bed before five in the morning to help you with this even though we have an important assignment due in a couple of hours! So maybe be grateful for once!"

"Sam," Tucker warned, "quit it."

The only thing that was stopping Danny from flying away right now was the thought of how angry Sam would be if he left her there with no boat. He curled his fingers into fists, trying to keep his breathing level as the pain directed at his parents began to shift a little bit more towards his friends. His emotions were so _high_ right now, and a part of him recognised that it was his core amplifying everything. That small thought was enough to drag him back down from the brink of a full meltdown, and he passed Tucker his paperwork before standing up and beginning to pace.

The movement began to dispel the pent-up tension, and Danny breathed through his nose in sharp bursts. With every five paces he turned on his heel and went the other way, shafts of golden sunlight slicing through his vision and making it easier to clear his head. The others waited for him, knowing the cues by now.

After a minute or so he could think properly again. The anger that had clouded his thoughts was duller, and the hurt and confusion over what had happened no longer overwhelmed him. He knew what he had to do, and there was no way around it. A couple of frozen tears still clung to his cheeks and Danny wiped them on the back of his hand before turning to face his friends. "Sorry, guys," he said, "my core's a mess today."

Tucker got to his feet as well, stretching with a groan. "We're all tired." He righted the ever-present beret before gulping down the rest of his coffee. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm going home after we hand in that assignment."

Sam frowned, standing up as well and hoisting her backpack onto her shoulder. "Won't your mum ground you for skipping class?"

Tucker puffed out his chest. "I'm already grounded," he said proudly. "She found an ectogun under my bed so now I'm stuck for the entire weekend."

"At least she didn't find the other four," Sam snorted.

Tucker swung his own bag off the ground. "Nah, they're all safe in here," he said, patting the canvas.

Danny accepted his assignment back from Tucker, grateful that the tension had dissolved with the change in dynamic. "I'll go home after handing this in as well," he said. "No use delaying things."

Their surprise was like a small wave on the shore – rolling forwards one moment, and then ebbing back into something gentler. Sam smiled at him, and he felt more reassured by that than anything else. "I'm proud of you," she said.

Danny shrugged as the last touches of cold melted away with his stabilising emotions. "I still have no clue what to say, but I don't think they'll hurt me."

Tucker huffed. "If your mum's really a halfa, I don't think you're in danger. Now let's go – if we're finishing these assignments before school starts then I'm gunna need another coffee."

Danny passed Sam his physics work and wrapped and arm around each of his friends' waists. He tilted into weightlessness, lifting all three of them into the air, and felt the clouds clear from his thoughts.

They were right – he just needed to sort everything out without overreacting. He was just as guilty of the secrets as his parents were, so maybe all they had to do was sit down as a family and actually tell the truth for once. First he'd hand in this stupid assignment, and then he'd head home and sort it all out. The thought of finally escaping from all of those tangled lies was incredibly freeing, and as they rose into the air, Danny couldn't stop himself from smiling.

Things were going to be fine.


	5. Tessellation

The lab was an absolute mess. Every single weapon of their entire inventing career had been spewed from the depths of drawers and the backs of cabinets, with power cords and battery packs tangled together in an intestinal heap. Most of the guns hadn't held their charge during storage, and their plastic casings made them look like cheap toys when they didn't light up along the sides.

Years of work lay in piles on the floor and the sight of it combined with her fatigue and threatened to overwhelm her.

Maddie stooped down and picked a pistol out of one of the mounds. Small and fairly nondescript, it was perfectly weighted and fit beautifully to the contours of her hand. Blue lights ignited along its black casing at her touch, and Maddie sighed as homesickness pressed at the space beneath her ribs.

"That thing still works?" Jack asked with a spark of wonder, dumping another armful of cables on the designated heap.

His curiosity pricked at her and Maddie nodded, pressing the gun into his outstretched hand. As soon as it lost contact with her the lights faded out, leaving the weapon as lifeless as the ones sorted into various piles on the floor. Jack took aim at a target across the lab and pulled the trigger but the gun was a useless as a child's toy.

Maddie straightened up and reclaimed the weapon from him. It lit up again immediately and her skin buzzed through her glove where it touched the plastic. She set her sights on the same target, a cardboard cut-out of a green blob that had been painted with ectoplasm, and squeezed the trigger. The gun fired in a steady beam of light, burning a hole straight through the cardboard ghost and dissipating harmlessly on the stainless steel wall behind it.

Jack chuckled. "Good old Ghost Zone technology," he said, clapping a hand on his wife's shoulder before heading back towards the drawers of old weapons. "One day I'll make something like that."

Maddie smiled and fished the pistol's holster out of the pile, clipping it to her empty utility belt. She slid the gun into its place, the weight on her hip feeling so much more _right_ than anything that she had ever built in this lab.

Her headache was still there from earlier, throbbing with increased intensity after that rush of activity, and Maddie pulled back her goggles and hood so she could rub her eyes. "I need to lie down," she said.

Jack didn't turn around to look at her, opting instead to wave his hand above where his head was buried in a cabinet. "I'll be up for some fudge once I finish this drawer," he responded, voice muffled. "Do you want me to make you anything?"

Maddie was already on the stairs. "No, I'm just tired," she called back.

As soon as she opened the thick iron door at the top of the stairs an exhaustion that was not her own brushed across her thoughts. Maddie followed the source, stepping into the kitchen to find her son sitting at the table.

Danny deposited his spoon into a half-empty bowl of cereal. He leaned back in his chair, just looking at her for a long moment, and Maddie's shoulders dropped in relief when there was none of the anger from the night before. Danny just felt tired, with something tender and sharp underlying the waves of exhaustion.

"I handed in my assignment," he said when she didn't move.

"That's good." She could sense a nervous anxiety creeping through him, and pushed herself to go and turn on the coffee machine. She didn't need the coffee, she needed _sleep,_ but she figured that this conversation would be more comfortable if it was casual. The last thing she wanted was for him to feel interrogated. While the machine did its work, she pulled some painkillers out of the high cupboard where they kept everyday medicine and swallowed them dry. Ectoplasm worked better, but she wouldn't rush to adapt herself around Danny yet. It was unclear what would be too much right now so she decided to do things on his terms.

Danny stayed quiet, his spoon clinking against the bowl as he resumed eating. His stress was beginning to swell, and she tried to buffer it by thinking of calming things. The thought of flying with her son was more than enough to settle her mind, and Danny's anxiety palpably softened in response to her mood.

She'd missed being able to communicate like this.

Coffee drizzled into her mug and Maddie made a satisfied sound as the machine clicked off. She took the drink over to the table, sitting so that she was at right angles to her son.

Danny spooned the last couple of mouthfuls in silence before pushing back his bowl and twisting his chair to face her a bit more. His uncertainty was like static in the room. "So," he began, meeting her eyes for a moment before dropping his gaze to her coffee mug instead, "sorry for yelling."

Out of all the things he could have said, he was apologising. His face was gaunt, as though somebody had carved sharp angles along his cheekbones and chipped away at the spaces around his eyes. Maddie wondered how she had missed it.

He responded to her guilt with more of that emotion that had been there since she had entered the room. A deep ache rested beneath his fatigue. When it touched her, Maddie felt the weight of something so monumental that she had to pull herself back.

There was a pause then, and neither one looked up.

"Secrets are heavy," Danny offered, the words fizzing against her senses with a tinge of bitterness. "I should have just told you when it happened."

Maddie shook her head. She didn't know what to say, but Danny sat quietly in his seat and didn't offer any further information. She focused on trying to decipher his aching soul – the pain that she could feel from him throbbed steadily, like a toothache that just wouldn't leave.

"I'm sorry that I didn't tell you," she said, trying to feel her way.

He looked at her then, mouth tight as his eyebrows drew themselves together. "Why didn't you?"

She gave a heavy sigh. "The Guys in White have been monitoring me ever since I left the Ghost Zone. When I had Jazz and then you, the agreement was that they wouldn't touch you if you didn't know about this. Immature cores can be crippled by injuries and I wasn't going to let that happen to you."

His frown grew deeper and a curious sort of confusion rose from him. "You're from the Ghost Zone?" He had curled his hands over his knees, leaning forward as though caught in her orbit. "But there's nothing there except creepy lairs and floating rocks."

Maddie sighed again. She wasn't really that surprised that he had gone through the portal before, but his lack of enthusiasm was something that they would need to overcome. "Yes," she said, resisting the urge to fold her arms across her chest. "There are places where clans of halfas live."

His shock punched her with its sheer intensity. Danny was wide-eyed with his mouth open as his shoulders and hands went limp. "What?" he whispered. Something else filtered through the shock, an overwhelming _relief_ that made Maddie wonder exactly what her son had been through. A couple of tears slipped down his cheeks, and Danny wiped them away with a shaky breath. "There… There are _more_ of us?" She nodded and he took another breath that shuddered with his shifting world. "Why have I never found any?"

"You have to know where to look," she answered. Guilt pressed against her lungs at the sheer loneliness he must have felt and Danny responded by reaching out to place his hand on her arm. The material of her HAZMAT suit blocked most of the energy from crossing between them but she still felt a faint tingle of cold at the contact.

"I'm okay," he reassured her, squeezing her arm before pulling back again. His emotions supported the statement – a lot of the weight from moments before had lifted away. He was still tired and a bit confused, but there was a peace there that hadn't been present before.

Maddie nodded before finally reaching for her cup of coffee. She took a sip, waiting for Danny to speak as she felt his curiosity peak again.

"So is Jazz a halfa?" he asked, scrunching his forehead. "Or Dad? Have I just been living in a house full of ghosts without realising it?"

Maddie snorted at the thought. "No, your dad's human," she said. "Jazz is as well."

His frown grew deeper. "But you're a halfa."

She waved her hand in a noncommittal gesture. "Do you remember studying genetics in biology class last year?"

"Not really," Danny grunted and ducked his head as sudden embarrassment rolled of him. "I was too busy protecting the town from ghosts."

So he was definitely Phantom then.

Right. They would have to talk about that in a minute. One thing at a time. "Well, people inherit things from their parents, like eye colour or the shape of their earlobes. You can have dominant genes or recessive, and everybody has two genes for each trait they inherit. With eyes, for example, brown is dominant and blue is recessive, so if a person gets blue eyes they have two blue genes, but a person with brown eyes will either have two brown genes or a blue and a brown since the brown is dominant and overpowers the blue."

Danny's confusion cleared in a ray of realisation. "So Dad gave us human genes, and you gave me a dominant halfa gene and Jazz got a whatever-it-is human gene?"

Maddie smiled in pride. "Yes," she said. "You were born with your core, but it stayed dormant because you were never exposed to enough ectoplasm to activate it."

She was sure that he felt her curiosity, but was unprepared for the anxiety that crept back into his emotional output. "Yeah, about that," he said, giving a nervous little laugh. He reached up to rub the back of his neck, radiating awkwardness. "I sorta might've been inside the portal when it first turned on."

It was her turn to be shocked. Maddie felt like somebody had dropped her in the snow – her brain emptied of all thought, the coffee cup tilting wildly in her hand and almost spilling its contents. She tried to form a coherent sentence as Danny's nervousness beat against her in waves of increasing intensity. Two thoughts wormed their way to the surface, vying for her attention. How had he kept this a secret for so long? But, with everything that they knew about Phantom, she had expected it to somehow be longer. "Your core's only been activated for three years?" she rasped. "With the level of power we've seen you use?!"

"Ah, yeah, I was wondering when you were gunna figure it out," he mumbled and looked down at the floor. "I guess that answers your question about me knowing Phantom."

Maddie slammed her cup back onto the table, reaching for her son and grasping his upper arms. A spike of fear shot through him at her urgency and he squirmed at her touch. "Mum?"

She tried to calm her panic as he responded with waves of uncertainty. "Let me feel your core," she insisted. "Morph, please."

He crinkled his nose and wormed his way out of her grasp. "You mean change my form?" Amusement sprinkled the air in a fine mist. "I call it 'going ghost'."

The joke did the trick – Maddie's tension loosened just a bit. "You're not serious."

Danny smirked at her, but the expression was lost in the undertone of his simmering stress. "Dead serious," he said. He put on an air of bravado and stood up, puffing out his chest with his hands on his hips and a serious expression. "I'm going ghost!" he announced in a ridiculously deep voice.

Light wrapped around him and swept away the son she knew, leaving the town's most infamous ghost in its wake. He floated there, seemingly unsure of what to do with his hands as he folded and unfolded his arms before rubbing his neck again. His eyes were simmering wells of green energy as he peered at her through white bangs that glowed with the shifting light of embers. "Uh, ta da?"

Maddie smiled, trying to ease him down by settling her own emotions. She was sure that she had nothing to worry about. Nudging the cold that tugged at her own chest, Maddie sighed as white rings snapped into place around her waist. They slipped over her body and melted away the form that she had become so accustomed to wearing.

The two of them hovered together and Danny stared at her in open surprise. "Mum," he breathed, reaching out a gloved hand to place it on her arm, "you look like _me._ "

Maddie grinned, "Actually, _you're_ the one who looks like _me._ "

Danny gave a broken laugh, pulling his arm back to run a hand through his hair. It sparked at his touch, like lightning in the clouds, throwing his face into unfamiliar shadows. Now that she saw him up close it was obvious that this was _Danny,_ but Maddie had to admit that from further away the glow would make it difficult to recognise him.

"You're not wearing HAZMAT," he observed.

Maddie shrugged at the comment. She was dressed plainly – a black shirt, black pants, and black boots that buckled up to her knees. "This is pretty typical for halfas," she explained. "If you're going to fight or train, it's usually as a ghost, and this is what people from my clan like to wear."

"It's not the outfit you died in?"

Maddie's gaze snapped to his face at that comment. "You didn't die," she said, struggling to keep herself calm and her voice level. He really knew nothing and it was difficult for her to not blame herself.

Danny's discomfort at her sudden swollen stress brushed at the edges of her senses, and Maddie drew herself back to the immediate issue. There was so much to deal with here that it could easily overwhelm both of them, so she really needed to take control of the situation and steer it carefully from one step to the next.

Danny didn't seem to know what to say, and Maddie took the opportunity to float closer to him. She tried to ignore the fact that she was flying – _actually flying!_ – after so long on the ground, and with her son no less! She placed a hand on his shoulder, and Danny reached up to cover it with his own. "I didn't die?" he breathed, seeming far too young as he stared at her with that radioactive gaze.

Maddie shook her head. "No, of course not," she reassured him. "You activated your core and it kept you from dying. But you're really powerful for your core's age so I need to check it to make sure that everything's stable."

He frowned, nose crinkling beneath a dusting of green freckles. There was still uncertainty there, thrumming steadily from her son like a rapid heartbeat. "All this time," he murmured, the words trailing off as he met her gaze. Maddie tried her best to soothe his stress, coaxing her own thoughts into stillness in the hope that he would react to her calmer output. It didn't take long – like the sky clearing after a storm, Danny's anxiety trickled past them to be replaced by warm swells of peace.

They stayed like that for a long moment, emotions lapping against each other as they both gathered their thoughts. Maddie tried not to wonder what her son had been going through – it would just stress her out, and right now she needed to be calm so that last night wasn't repeated.

Danny seemed to echo her thoughts. "I'm glad I'm not dead," he said, the corners of his mouth curving upwards. That little smile smoothed out some of the exhaustion in his expression, and Danny suddenly looked more at ease than he had so far. "I guess me have a lot to talk about, but there's a lot, and I don't know where to start."

Maddie squeezed his shoulder. "Just let me check your core, and then we can all have a rest before we talk about it."

Danny nodded. "I barely slept last night," he confessed. "I think that last time I looked at the clock was three thirty."

"I didn't get any sleep," Maddie responded, keeping her voice light and a smile on her face. This was the problem with being a halfa – you really couldn't lie to each other. Stress stirred within her at the thought of everything her son's secret could contain but she masked it by focusing on the exhaustion that weighed her down.

Danny yawned in response to the fatigue that she broadcasted. "So how do you look at my core?"

Maddie floated closer to him and rested both hands on his shoulders. "Stay still," she instructed and turned her hands intangible. They passed through his body like it wasn't even there and Maddie chewed on her lower lip, frowning as she concentrated on finding the buzz of energy that indicated that her hands were in the place where his core was sitting. After a moment she found it, nestled in its rightful place behind his other internal organs. It was a physical organ itself, a rope-like structure thin enough to wrap one hand around and running from the height of his shoulder blades all the way down to his hips. Maddie channelled energy into her hands, enabling her to curl her fingers around his core without turning tangible and damaging the rest of his insides.

Danny made a curious whining sound, his breathing sharp as he tensed in her grasp. Discomfort rolled off him and he tried to pull away from her. The movement tugged at Maddie's hands but she held fast and Danny whined again, screwing his eyes shut and clasping her biceps.

"That hurts," he gasped, face twisting as he tried to push her arms away.

"Stop moving," Maddie insisted. "This'll be faster if you stay still."

Danny nodded without opening his eyes, and Maddie gently ran her hands up and down the length of his core. The surface was smooth and cold and it slipped through her fingers like silk, devoid of injuries or scars. Maddie's frown deepened at the sensation of some sections exhibiting more ambient power than others. She started from the top and slid her hands slowly down while Danny's muscles tremored. Her son's core was a mosaic of power levels, some parts overflowing with energy while others were so faint that she could barely feel them. She tested a section, sending gentle pulses of power through the core and feeling the way that it responded.

Danny yelped, digging his fingers into her arms and trying to tug backwards again. Maddie let go and allowed him to pull away so that they were floating a couple of paces apart.

"What the hell was that?" he panted, curling in on himself in mid-air and wrapping his arms around his waist. Danny's legs had morphed into a spectral tail and it shifted as though drawing itself towards his chest.

"You're not hurt," Maddie said. "It's not pleasant to have your core examined but you'll feel better in a moment."

Danny grunted, moving to massage his abdomen. "I feel like you just stirred up my insides. How often do you have to do that to me?"

"Every few months until your core's mature."

"Great," he grumbled, uncurling enough to drop into his chair. "So what was that actually for?"

Maddie sat down as well, reclaiming her cup of coffee and taking a long draught. It was now only lukewarm, and she sighed.

Danny tensed at her dissatisfaction and Maddie lifted her mug towards him slightly. "Coffee's cold," she clarified. "Your core's nothing to worry about. You have some parts that are good and strong from all the fighting you do, but there are also a lot of powers that are either only partially developed or not available yet."

He nodded. "Yeah, I get a new power every now and then, or an old one sort of upgrades."

"We'll test you more later," she responded. "You really should be training with me so we can make sure that each power develops properly and you don't neglect anything."

Danny yawned. "How much more developing do I hafta do?"

Maddie stood up, heading towards the sink with the half-full mug. "Cores typically mature after ten years," she informed him, "so you've got about seven left." She tipped her drink down the drain and cleaned the mug before placing it on the side. Danny's emotions were fairly flat – nothing was discernible beyond his exhaustion. Maddie turned towards him again. "Come on, let's both go lie down for a bit and then we can all talk some more this afternoon."

Danny yawned, using the table to lever himself to his feet. "Solid plan," he mumbled.

Footsteps rattled on the lab's metal stairs and the yellow biohazard door flew open and crashed into the wall behind it with a bang that startled Maddie's sluggish thoughts into high alert. Danny had practically leapt into the air at the sound, and he hovered close beside her with his hands up in readiness for whatever attack might be coming.

Jack bounded through the door, arms wrapped around an assortment of blasters that threatened to slip out of his grasp with every movement. He stopped when he saw the two halfas, and Maddie barely registered his surprise before he gave one of those brilliant grins that lit up her view like the rising sun. "Dann-o!" he bellowed, dropping the weapons on the floor and striding towards them. "Looks like you're a true Fenton ghost hunter after all!"

A snort sounded from the teen floating next to her, and Maddie shoved her elbow into his ribs in a playful gesture. The initial surprise at Jack's loud entrance had given away to amusement for both of them and Danny dropped back onto the floor. As soon as his boots touched the scuffed linoleum Jack swept him into a hug, lifting Danny back off the floor in his enthusiasm. The large man's guilt flushed through the room like a bad smell, and Maddie could feel Danny's awkward stress seep back.

"Dad," he groaned, "I'm okay."

Jack gave him an extra tight squeeze before allowing him to slip out of his arms. Danny stood between the two adults, his breathing tense as that same helpless uncertainty bled through the air. "It's fine," he said before either of them could get a word in. "The portal activated my core, you guys never hurt me that much with your hunting, and everything's okay now." His exhaustion bloomed, and he visibly swayed on his feet.

Maddie got the feeling that he was far too tired to go over everything right then, and she sent her husband a glance over Danny's head. "We were both just heading upstairs for a rest," she said once Jack met her eyes. "We were going to talk more later."

Jack nodded. "When you two wake up I should be ready to take your ectosignatures so we can make sure our weapons can't hurt either of you."

Danny's relief swelled against her, and Maddie placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. "That sounds great," she said. "Message those agents as well so they can come and get Danny's ectosignature for that gun." She glanced at the clock on the wall above the sink – it was almost midday already. "Tell them to come after dinner."

"Sure," Jack said, stepping to one side so that they could access the door. "Is there any fudge?"

Maddie smiled at her husband as Danny chuckled. "Of course," she said, tightening her grip on her son's shoulder and steering him towards to doorway. "Wake me up by five."

"Mhm," Jack grunted, pulling open the fridge door and bending over to hunt inside. "See you later."

Danny slipped out of her grasp, skirting the pile of ectoguns and beginning to climb the stairs. "I'll see you at dinner," he murmured before climbing ahead of her, a lingering sense of relief trailing behind him.

Yawning, Maddie followed him up the stairs. Sleep tugged at her mind, beckoning her to bed, and she ignored thoughts that grew slower with every step. She'd deal with the Guys in White in a few hours, and then maybe after all these years she'd finally be able to float with her son among the clouds.


	6. Tempest

Over the course of the afternoon a storm had swelled from the horizon, sending towering clouds in huge swathes of grey steadily scrolling across the sky until they blocked out all blue. The static energy rolling with the wind found its way beneath doors and through the slivers of space between windows and their frames, leaving an acidic tinge in the back of Danny's throat with every breath. It was going to be a big one. The sight of the clouds evoked an ache that penetrated down to his bones, his core thrumming with a clear resonance at the sheer power that rolled from above. It wasn't a snowstorm – it was still a bit too early for those – but Danny's soul sang at the thought of lifting himself free of the earth's gravitational pull to rise into the grey mass.

He refocused his gaze and scowled at the reflection of glowing green eyes in his windowpane. It was difficult to rein himself in again, trying to force his core to settle despite the energy that throbbed through the air with every fresh gust of wind. As soon as his reflection stopped glowing he pulled his curtains closed, tearing away from the view and forcing himself to walk out of his bedroom.

The house shuddered as it was hammered by waves of wind, and Danny paused halfway down the stairs as he tried to gather his thoughts. He could feel his parents in the kitchen, and their emotions were wound with the tightness of tension. Each person felt a bit different – his father's emotions usually fizzed like a soda can after it had been shaken, or like orange sherbet on your tongue. His mother was more muted, probably deliberately restrained if she had been a halfa for as long as she implied, and the soft edges of her thoughts were gently falling snow or the moon rising on clear winter nights.

He wondered what his own emotions felt like, and then Danny noticed the shift in his mother's perception. She had recognised him on the stairs and pressed against his mind inquisitively. He sighed as the house shuddered again and walked the rest of the way down, stopping in the kitchen doorway and leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded across his chest. He knew that his mother could sense his amusement but Jack remained oblivious, his back to the door as he brandished a screwdriver at what looked like a glowing blood pressure cuff. Cords connected the device to a laptop on the table, its screen lit up with a distinctive shade of blue that always sent Tucker into a nervous panic.

"This computer's possessed!" Jack bellowed, slamming the screwdriver down and beginning to type furiously. The monitor didn't change, smugly displaying its error message with the sad little frowning emoticon. "Those damned ghosts! First they steal my fudge, then they destroy my computer!"

Maddie smirked at Danny over his father's head and Danny grinned back at her. His father always ate all the fudge in the middle of the night and then would forget about it the next day and blame ghosts for the loss. It had become a bit of a running joke in the Fenton household and whenever something went missing everyone would blame it on the ghosts. Jack never noticed their sarcasm.

"Blue screen of death?" he asked casually, smile widening as Jack whirled to face him. "Tucker got grounded so he can't fix it until Monday."

Jack's surprise at Danny's appearance ebbed away, disappointment bleeding through in its wake. "It's to get your ectosignature though. I can't fix the weapons until this works!"

Danny shrugged, pushing himself off the doorframe and reaching around his father. He pulled out the USB connecting the blood pressure cuff and held down the laptop's power button. "Maybe it just needs a restart," he suggested as the screen went black. "I think Tuck made sure that there was a startup repair installed so we can try that first."

Jack took a step back to allow Danny full access to the computer. It was quiet in the room and Danny took a moment to try to gauge what his parents were feeling. Jack was an easy read, expressing frustration that Danny presumed was aimed at the computer mingled with anxiety that Danny thought might be directed towards him. Maddie proved a bit more difficult to decipher – something was unsettled about her, but it was muffled by a calm overlay. Danny wondered if it was possible to manipulate what emotions others could sense from you.

The fan whirred as the machine came back to life and Danny mashed his finger against the F8 key. Nobody spoke as the screen changed again, and he made a pleased sound as he selected the option to repair the computer. "Told you," he said, stepping back as the computer began to do its thing. "Give it a few minutes, hopefully this'll fix it."

Wind slammed against the house again and the beams creaked inside the walls.

"Right," Jack said with a decisive nod. "Let's have fudge for dinner."

The comment was accompanied by a tidal wave of Jack's uncertainty, making Danny cringe as it sent his core reeling. "Uh, maybe pizza would be better?" he suggested. His voice was weaker than he would have liked and he was grateful when his mother wrapped him in her more stable sense of calm. It was almost meditative and he turned to look at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Pizza sounds great," she responded, amusement streaking between them like a ray of light. "It's Friday anyway so I'm not cooking."

"Well every time we have fudge it disappears, so I'm sure that _ghosts_ are stealing it! I'll have to make it with blood blossoms next time. Now, to the telephone!" Jack cried, stampeding out of the room.

The emotional whirlwind that they had been caught in settled softly like swirling motes of dust.

"He's trying," Maddie said.

Danny tried to push away his feeling of relief – the conversation would have to be had sooner or later and all they were accomplishing by this strange avoidance was postponing the inevitable. "I know."

She sighed and sat in the same chair that Danny had been using only a few hours ago. It creaked as she settled into it and wind whistled through the tiny gaps around the kitchen window frame. She looked almost unfamiliar as she ran a hand through unkempt hair, and was still wearing the creased pyjamas from her nap instead of her typical blue HAZMAT. The lack of black around her face made her seem younger. He got the irrational feeling that their roles were now reversed but chalked it down to the different dynamic of the room. "I called Jazz," he told her, trying to shake off the thought that they had already started a conversation like this today.

She didn't look at him, but Danny got the feeling that she was waiting for him to say something else. He sent out a shot of confusion and her peaceful thoughts stirred to release the apprehension that dwelt beneath.

"She figured me out years ago," he said, probing for some sort of response. "I told her what happened last night."

Her guilt was back again, weighing down the air between them. "What does she think?"

Danny braced his hands against the table. "She's fine with the whole halfa thing, I think she always has been ever since she figured me out, but we're both still confused about why you didn't tell us _something._ We've been in the Ghost Zone before, we both get attacked regularly, and your weapons malfunction around us all the time. You could have at least told us how to defend ourselves."

Maddie sighed again, and he watched as she ran her hand over a whorl in the grain of the table. "I told you before. If we told you anything that could help you learn the truth then we would lose you. We didn't know when those agents could be watching us." She finally looked up at him, distress simmering alongside her guilt. "We tried to teach you both how to use defensive tech and told you to stay away from things that might be dangerous but neither of you ever wanted to learn."

Danny tried his best to stay calm but he knew that she could feel his frustration. The computer whirred happily, lighting up with the lock screen, and he had the nasty thought that the little machine had been easy to fix in comparison to this mess. "If you were worried about the agents overhearing then you could have told us on one of our camping trips," he snapped, "or when Dad used to take me fishing, or when we were at Vlad's place. You could have whispered it to me one night or sent me a coded message or pretended to get lost together in the Ghost Zone…" he trailed off, knowing how ridiculous he sounded but unable to hide the tears that burned across his lashline. "Why didn't you tell me?" he rasped, voice tight with held-back tears. "Didn't you know I was hurting?"

Maddie's guilt expanded with every word. "Sweetie, I'm sorry, but it was too risky. If we'd known…" she faltered, brushing her fingers against her own eyes as they shone with extra moisture. "If we'd known that you were in that portal, we _never_ would have kept it from you."

"You seriously think it was the right thing to do?" he demanded, deliberately ignoring the tears that began to run down his face. "Don't you think we deserved to know?"

Danny didn't know why he kept pushing like this but desperation hammered in his heartbeat. All of the pain, all of the fear and the secrets – everything could have been avoided if his parents had just been honest from the start.

Maddie's guilt continued to build, saturating the air like dense clouds of smoke. She said nothing.

"You could have at least told us that not all ghosts are evil," he insisted, and the words tugged at that sharp pain inside him.

Maddie's pain met his with equal intensity. "We needed to keep you safe," she finally said, the words wrenching at his thoughts. "You and Jazz weren't interested in learning how to defend yourselves, even when you were young, so we decided to tell you anything we could to keep you out of danger. Most ghosts that come through portals are malevolent so it was too much of a risk."

Her words made an awful kind of sense but logic couldn't seem to push past his emotions right now. The room felt too small, the neckline of his shirt too tight, and his breath was loud in his own ears as an arctic chill swept through every vein. Danny didn't want to lose control but his body reacted to his frustration before he could rein in his core. He briefly wondered if this was what obsessions felt like but then the thought was lost as his core took over. "I hated myself!" he screamed, clenching his fists. He knew that his eyes were glowing – the aura tinted his peripheral vision – but now that he had started, the hurt all welled to the surface and clawed its way up his throat. "I thought I was some kind of, of _freak_ who would never belong anywhere, and, and you were always shooting at me, and when I finally met Vlad h-he was an absolute _jerk_ and I thought he was the only other one like me and I was so _lonely_ and _scared!_ "

No words could articulate his pain and so he dumped that there as well, letting it all go so that his mother would be able to feel every nuance of what he had been through. His tears had frozen on his cheeks again and new ones followed their paths – they froze on the top to create thicker and thicker layers of ice on his face.

It was freeing to finally unload everything that he had carried for so long, and Danny simply stood there as his breathing rasped against the silent weight of the emotions in the room.

Dawning horror pressed against his nerves as Maddie's shock faded and tears began to slip down her own cheeks. She got to her feet, but Danny stayed stiff and unresponsive as she gently wrapped her arms around him. She was soft and familiar and his soul cried out for the gentle comfort that she could provide but he held himself aloof. Some part of him screamed that he needed her to understand what she'd done to him, and as Maddie stroked his hair he felt the energy of her core through her skin.

The contact heightened their awareness of each other, and her regret penetrated his flesh and flushed through his veins. It was something that Danny had never experienced before and this new way of sharing emotions was confronting, but when his brain told his body to pull away his core took charge instead and he melted into his mother's embrace with a sob. He felt her emotions as if they were his own, guilt and regret knotted together with overwhelming sorrow, and some part of him realised that if he was feeling his mother's emotions then she was probably feeling his as well. This was something that words could never even begin to express – an intimate understanding of the person that explained every facet of their emotions. You could talk for weeks on end but still never know somebody as well as Danny knew his mother in this moment. He could feel the rush of their heartbeats, the steady hum of their cores, the hollow, empty bellows of air in their lungs, and he buried his face in her shoulder and cried.

An uncertainty that belonged to neither of them came from the doorway and nudged against Danny's awareness, and a moment later a large pair of arms folded around the two halfas. Jack didn't say anything, his warm weight reassuring at Danny's back. Danny continued to cry, and thick emotions poured out of him with every heaving breath. Frozen tears cracked off his skin in little sheets of ice, sticking to the soft fabric of Maddie's pyjamas. He clutched at his mother's shirt with tight fists and simply allowed himself to be _held_ for the first time he could really remember since he had turned on that portal.

Time slipped by. By the time the doorbell rang Danny felt like a heavy rain had washed him out. "That'll be the pizza," Jack said, rubbing a hand through Danny's hair before pulling away.

"Make sure you tip him extra for delivering in that gale outside," Maddie reminded him.

Jack made an affirmative noise and Danny felt his emotions grow fainter as he moved out of the room. A moment later they heard voices at the door, and wind whistled through the house from this new access point.

"Come on," Maddie coaxed, and Danny allowed himself to be guided to a chair. She helped him into it and he slumped over the table, folding his arms against the scarred wood and resting his head on them. He had a headache again thanks to all that crying, and a curious emptiness left behind after his mother stopped sharing their emotions through touch. He could still read the room but it was nowhere near as intense as the skin-to-skin contact had been.

"Does it always feel like that when you touch another halfa?" he mumbled, pressing stinging eyes into his forearm. The pressure sent tiny bursts of light across the darkness of his closed lids and it made him feel a little better. Human or not, this had always been the same.

Maddie hummed and he could feel her moving around him. The laptop closed with a small click, papers shuffling as she shifted and he realised that she was clearing the table. "Not really," she said. "It's only when you're both broadcasting at an intense level. I guess you never tried it with Vlad?"

Danny snorted, regretting the action as his head throbbed. "He's a fruitloop," he said by way of explanation. He knew that his frustration bloomed at the mere mention of Vlad's name, and Maddie's amusement cut through the lingering heavy emotions like a knife. Not everything had been fixed yet but after what they had just shared the energy between them had grown lighter.

"He's always been… difficult," she suggested.

"What's his problem anyway?" Danny grumbled.

"Who's problem?" Jack asked, the familiar scent of pizza wafting into the room along with him. "Is it a ghost?!"

"Just Vlad," Maddie said, and Danny felt the boxes being placed just in front of where his head and arms still rested on the table. "Would you be a dear and go get some ectoplasm from the lab for Danny's headache?"

Jack left again, and Danny struggled to figure out what he wanted to talk about first. "I have so many questions," he mumbled, "about _so_ many things."

His mother's hand gently carded through his hair and Danny relaxed at her touch. The contact still throbbed with energy and a deep sudden _awareness_ of her core that matched his ghost sense, but nothing like their embrace had been. "One step at a time," she reminded him.

Danny huffed, lifting his head from his forearms as his father's footsteps hammered up the lab's stairs. Wind cracked against the house again and his core jumped in response to the rush of energy but a soft thought from his mother tied him down. "How do you do that?" he asked.

"Think about calming things," she suggested. "Controlling your core comes with time."

He grunted and sat up properly as Jack burst back into the room. "Got it!" the man bellowed, slamming a glass bottle down in front of Danny.

There was a sudden silence weighted by apprehension from both of his parents, and Danny realised that they weren't sure what he was comfortable with. The prospect of dissecting every little aspect of his life was exhausting so before either of them could try to explain why they had just given him a bottle filled with glowing green slime he unscrewed the cap and took a long draught. The ectoplasm was thick and viscous with a texture somewhere between honey and ice-cream, its energy familiar on his tongue in a way that made his core ache. The pain in his head was swept away like old cobwebs during a spring clean.

Jack made a little strangled sound while his surprise crept like a sudden spreading stain, and Danny smiled at him. "It's like water, isn't it? Just like my body needs me to drink water all the time, my core needs ectoplasm."

He already knew the answer, but the way Jack's face slackened at the relief of being included was worth asking.

"Yeah," he father managed. "Halfas need ectoplasm to survive. In fact, I've decided to invent a new device that'll-"

"Yes, dear," Maddie interrupted, catching her son's eye and winking. "But the pizzas are getting cold so let's start eating."

Jack grumbled good-naturedly and heaved himself into a chair. It creaked in protest, and Danny took another long drink of ectoplasm as his mother took a seat as well. "I got all our favourites!" Jack announced, spreading the three boxes out from where they were stacked and opening each lid. Danny snagged the garlic bread first, unwrapping its foil packaging and pulling it into thirds before his father could devour the whole thing. It was still hot enough that he had to blow on his fingers, and the simple familiarity of pizza night on Fridays went a long way toward steadying him.

He grabbed a slice of the New York pepperoni, taking several bites while he tried to figure out what to say first. The brief conversation over the past five minutes had stirred his curiosity and he glanced at his mother. "So, what's the deal with Vlad?"

Maddie sighed, taking a sip from a second bottle of ectoplasm that Jack had given her while Danny had been distracted. "Vlad's always been an issue," she said. "It's complicated."

"I don't get it." Danny pulled at a string of cheese that hung off the edge of his slice. "Ever since we found about each other he's gone on and on about how he wants to kill dad and marry you, and he wants me as his son etcetera etcetera, but he's never said anything about you being a halfa or about other halfas existing. I thought he thought we were alone as well."

Maddie frowned, irritation buzzing like a mosquito around the table. "Halfas don't usually leave the Ghost Zone," she explained, "but it's happened at a slow trickle for as long as ghost portals have existed. It's entirely possible for two halfa parents to have a human child, sort of like Jazz, and so there's always been an option for those human children to move into this world if they choose to as they get older. It's only since the Guys in White were formed that the portals were shut down or regulated. In the past when the humans would leave the Ghost Zone, halfas would sometimes choose to come with them. It's been happening for so long that there are estimated to be millions of people on the earth who have unactivated cores without knowing about it. It's just incredibly rare for anything to happen since most people don't go around playing with ectoplasm or ghost portals."

Danny felt like his world was reeling. "So Vlad left the Ghost Zone?" he asked. "Or was he one of those people born in this world who didn't know he had a core?"

"He was born in Wisconsin," Jack supplied. "Nobody knew he had a core until it was activated at college."

"The proto-portal," Danny murmured.

Maddie nodded. "I was already being monitored by the Guys in White so your father and I weren't allowed to say anything about it, and Vlad was never told about other halfas."

His parents' regret was sour, and Danny took another bite of pizza in an effort to not be weighed down again. There was so much information here and he needed to go slowly if he wanted them to unpack everything for him. "So is that why he went crazy? Because it's more than just a little bit of weirdness – he's seriously messed up."

Maddie nodded. "There was nobody to help balance his core, so it started to rule his emotions and he became unstable. Instability in cores generates unhealthy obsessions and unpredictable behaviour. Unbalanced cores also cause outbursts of power, which is why it took twenty years for the Guys in White to let him out of their facilities – he was too dangerous."

"He's still dangerous now," Danny grumbled. "Is that why you were checking my core before? For balance?"

"Yes," Maddie responded once she had swallowed her latest mouthful. "I know it's a bit uncomfortable but without the proper equipment I had to use my hands. Usually in the Ghost Zone we use scanners and it's far less painful for the kids. They usually get a treat afterwards like you used to at the dentist when you were younger."

Danny reached for another piece of pizza. "So you were born in the Ghost Zone?"

Maddie made an affirmative sound around a mouthful of food and Jack swooped in. "She sure was!" he exclaimed. "Mads comes from a huge halfa clan, and your aunt Alicia was born a human so your mum helped her move into our world when she got old enough to choose. That's when I met them!"

The weight was completely gone from their conversation with the change in topic, and Danny felt himself relax at the positive contentment that the memory seemed to stir from both of his parents.

Maddie's smile delicately creased the skin around her eyes. "Your father was unlike anyone I'd met before," she said. "He noticed the Guys in White around us and managed to push his way in by offering to check Alicia's new house for ghosts. I wanted to know more about human ghost hunters and so I decided to wear the limiter so I could go to university with Jack and learn more about human attitudes. I'd planned to go back to the Ghost Zone once I graduated to bring the information back to my clan but your father and I got a bit too close for me to want to leave."

Danny rolled his eyes at the affection that emanated from them in waves. "But you realised you loved Dad when he saved you from the proto portal. It couldn't hurt you though, right?"

"It's the thought that counts," Jack interjected, incredulity playful in his tone.

Maddie smiled. "Exactly," she said. "Self-sacrifice is unusual in the Ghost Zone since we don't get hurt or age the same way when our cores are active."

"So why didn't you two move into the Ghost Zone to escape the Guys in White?"

Their emotions grew dull, Jack's output brimming with a sudden sharp feeling of inadequacy while Maddie just felt sad. "It's the Ghost Zone law," she explained as Jack shoved more pizza into his mouth in what Danny felt was an effort to drown out the negative thoughts. "Creatures without cores are encouraged to leave but can stay there if they were born there. Creatures without cores aren't permitted to move in. It's always been the rules."

Danny snorted as he remembered something. "Yeah, Walker got really mad when he thought I was bringing human-world contraband into the Ghost Zone." His mother's sudden hot streak of anger surprised him and Danny frowned at her. "What?"

Jack looked up as well, his interest clearly piqued by the obvious nonverbal communication. It should have been unsettling but his interest somehow made Danny feel less like a science experiment and more like part of the family again.

Maddie clenched her fingers tightly around her bottle. "Walker has no jurisdiction over you," she snapped. "Did he hurt you?"

Danny shrugged. "He doesn't like me being a halfa. He's locked me up a couple of times, pretty standard stuff…" He trailed off as her eyes shone with a radioactive sheen and fury began to radiate from her.

"Mads," Jack said, reaching across the table to put a hand over hers, "calm down. We'll catch that filthy ghost next time he tries to come through the portal."

She was still stressed and Danny decided to try to project positive emotions to calm her down. He thought about the wind that still hammered the house and the way it made his core sing. The sky out there was so inviting, and he was eager to shoot up there and ride the storm's waves until he rose above them to float in a dark stillness freckled with the sparks of stars.

The perfect peace of a dark night sky rippled through the room like a stone being dropped into a pond, and Maddie's anger faded in its wake. She looked at him and Danny felt a flush of embarrassment at her pride. No words were exchanged – her emotions were all the praise he needed.

Jack drew his hand back when he noticed that his wife had relaxed and Danny wondered what his father must be experiencing as he watched the two of them communicate in such an inhuman way. He knew that if he were in that situation himself he probably would have felt left out, but so far the predominant emotions coming from Jack had been positive.

The man in question folded an entire piece of pizza and shoved the whole thing into his mouth, and Danny stopped worrying. Jack was always easy to read so if anything started to turn sour Danny and Maddie would be the first people to know about it.

"So," Danny said, "what's the deal with the Guys in White anyway? You said they needed my ectosignature?"

Maddie turned to Jack. "Did you call them?" she asked.

Jack bobbed his head. "Mhm," he mumbled around his food. He held up his hand, making an exaggerated show of swallowing the food. "Man, that's good pizza. They said they're too busy to come here tonight but that we can meet them later in the square. I think they said eleven thirty."

Maddie sighed, and Danny wondered at her weary exasperation. "We'll be there by eleven," she insisted. "Don't give them any excuse to say that we're not cooperating."

"You argue with them all the time," Jack commented, and Danny stared at his mother in open surprise.

She seemed amused by his shock, but there was a wariness there that concerned him. Maddie sent him a soothing calm that wafted through the room like a gentle breeze and he settled again. "I don't want any trouble with that gun," she clarified. "It's no good insulting them when that thing is still calibrated to shoot Danny."

Jack made an affirmative sound before turning more fully to face his son. Danny paused mid-bite at the sudden decisive way that his father squared his shoulders. "So, Danny-boy, I think it's time you came clean."

He frowned. "Wha-"

Jack's brows had drawn together in the middle, his mouth pinching into a pout as he brandished a crust of pizza in the air. "What've you been doing as Phantom, hm? Kidnapping the mayor is one thing, but I can't believe that you've been stealing my fudge!"


	7. Impact

It started pouring as they left. Danny sat in the drivers' seat, fingers tight around the steering wheel as his mother directed him to back down the driveway. "It's good for you to get some rain driving," she said. "Slow… Turn… The other way… Yes."

Danny chewed his lower lip as he pressed hit foot against the clutch and shifted the RV from reverse to first gear with a sickening crunch. The engine shuddered and the vehicle hopped forwards with a jerk before stalling. He made a frustrated sound, flipping the windscreen wipers from moderate to high before slamming against the clutch and turning the key in the ignition again. "I don't see why I need a driving lesson now," he grumbled as Jack howled with laughter from the back seat.

"You can't always rely on your powers to fly you around," Maddie reminded him. "Now gently accelerate…" The car revved and Danny caught her smile out of the corner of his eye. "Not that much, remember to take your foot off the clutch at the same time…"

The RV jerked forwards again, but this time it kept moving. Danny dragged the steering wheel to one side to prevent them from mounting the kerb and the engine screamed as they began to drive down the road.

"Second gear," his mother reminded him, and he hit the clutch again and tugged the gearstick into position. Gears ground together, the car gave another shaky jerk, and Danny's hands were so slick with sweat that he was worried that they'd slip off the steering wheel. His heart beat loud in his ears and he hoped that there were no other cars out this late in such terrible weather.

His mother told him to change gears again, her soft emotions helping to quell some of his anxiety, and he moved to third with another frenzied movement. This time they moved a bit faster and he hunched over the steering wheel, desperately watching the white lines on the road and trying to stay in his lane. The power of the vehicle was unnerving and he found himself thinking that just one little mistake would be enough to ruin someone's life. The concept wasn't necessarily a foreign one, so he pushed it away before he could begin to dwell on dark thoughts from a future that would never happen.

It was fresh in his mind after the conversation over dinner – they had spoken for hours but he still hadn't managed to explain a lot of things, especially the darker issues that he'd faced in the past. He wasn't even really sure if he knew _how_. The engine complained as he tried to ease it to a stop at an intersection and Danny welcomed the distraction. He just needed to focus on one thing at a time…

By the time they drove the couple of blocks to the town square he was so full of adrenaline that he felt like he'd just been in a fight. Danny tugged the steering wheel to one side and the car jolted as two of its wheels ran up over the gutter. He slammed one foot into the clutch and the other on the brake, the seatbelt cutting into his shoulder as the vehicle mercifully jerked to a stop.

"Flying's easier," he said as both of his parents laughed. He pulled the keys out of the ignition and passed them to his mother. "I can't believe that we're actually doing this."

Compared to his mess of anxious stress her emotional output was incredibly calm. He felt like she had enveloped him in a comforting blanket and Danny instinctively reached for his mother's hand. She was wearing her HAZMAT now, so his skin met her glove, but the added closeness of the contact helped to soothe his heightened emotions. Though stressful, the drive had been a good distraction, and Danny knew that his parents were trying their best to keep things as normal as possible after the revelations of the past day.

Through the deluge he could see white figures approaching the car.

Danny tensed, pressing back into his seat and tightening his grip on his mother's hand. Maddie squeezed back, then slipped intangibly out of his grasp and through the door. He watched as she met the agents outside and their figures stood in the circle of light beneath a streetlamp. Rain shone in the orange beam and added a soft fuzziness to their forms. The two agents dripped with every movement but his mother's hair stayed light around her head, and Danny smirked at her use of intangibility to stay dry.

The car's engine ticked gently as it began to cool and Danny's father shifted in the back seat. "Any idea what they're saying?"

Danny shrugged. The rain drummed against the roof of the van as trees twisted in the gale. "I can't hear them, but it feels like Mum's pretty chill. The agents feel a bit pissed off about something though."

"Probably the rain," Jack offered.

Danny made a non-committal sound, floating backwards through his seat so that he was sitting next to him. Jack's stress mounted and Danny was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that they hadn't yet shared a moment alone since everything happened. He scooted closer, bumping their knees and shoulders together in a casual movement.

Jack dragged his hands down his face, and Danny waited. Nobody outside had moved much but his mother seemed to be speaking – her hands made small gestures that probably punctuated her comments.

The pressure inside the car mounted as Jack visibly struggled with something that he wanted to say. Danny pushed back with a lighter emotion before remembering that it was useless. He ran his fingers over the back of his hand, feeling the invisible ridges of a wound that was still healing. "You never hurt me too badly," he said. The words were almost lost as wind slammed into the van.

His guess seemed to be spot on. Jack sagged, shoulders drooping as he looked down at his lap. "I did hurt you though."

Danny bumped their shoulders again. "Well yeah, but _everyone_ wants a piece of my hide, so it's not like it was personal or anything."

"Why didn't we see it?" Jack demanded, turning to frown at his son. Danny was caught in the lines of his father's face – the dim interior of the car was only lit by the light outside, so the small wrinkles around Jack's features became deep valleys of shadow. He was suddenly struck by how _weary_ Jack was and couldn't prevent a stab of guilt at his contribution to it all.

"I hide it," he confessed. His father tensed with a sharp breath. Danny immediately wondered if he even should have said that much, after everything that they had already worked through that day, but his mother had now turned around and was moving back to the car. She wrenched the back door open and the moment was lost.

"Come on," she said, reaching a dry hand into the back and grasping Jack's hand. He shivered and sank partially through the seat before being pulled intangibly from the car. Danny followed behind them, shifting himself out of the tangible spectrum as well. He felt nothing as rain fell straight through him. "I told the agents that Phantom would only appear if we were there to support him," Maddie said, her soft words almost lost in the storm.

Danny nodded with an affirmative hum and the three of them moved so he could close the car door – not that it really mattered, but he guessed that living in a tangible world gave you habits that were difficult to break. He'd been hiding his powers for so long that using them in front of his parents felt strange on some deep instinctual level and it was almost tempting to just turn tangible and allow himself to get wet. Walking was a bit complicated, since it was all too easy to fall through the floor if you didn't focus on viewing that as solid. Intangibility was really all to do with the mind – if you viewed something as insubstantial, then it was. If you viewed yourself as the only thing in the universe, nothing could touch you.

Maddie began to walk towards a cluster of floodlights nearby, practically dragging Jack so that he didn't slide into the asphalt like a video game character clipping through the floor. Danny considered floating but decided against it – he wasn't sure what the agents had figured out so far and he wanted to hold onto any advantage that he might still have. He lurched forwards, grabbing his mother's arm and moving along with her to give the impression that she was the one keeping him dry.

The square had more people there than he had expected. He hadn't noticed them before, the storm impairing his ability to sense emotions more than a few paces away, but as Danny moved through the rain with his parents he realised that there were about a dozen people already there. It made sense and he didn't know why he had only been expecting the two agents but anxiety clawed at his gut. Maddie tried to soothe him but lightning tore apart the clouds and the raw energy in the air made both of them jump. Intangibility faltered for a moment, all three of them darkening around their shoulders with heavy raindrops before Danny managed to haul them back out of the physical plane. His mother's core added to his, and she took over for herself and his father. Danny transferred the load a bit clumsily and scowled as thunder rolled around them. He felt wrong, like he was fumbling in the dark without a sense of direction or purpose.

It scared him.

As they drew closer to the light in the middle of the square he saw everything more clearly. The shadows and shapes became better defined, their jumble of emotions less static-y with proximity. They were white-suited agents, their clothing as wet as if it had been raining for hours instead of ten minutes. It was really too windy for them to hold umbrellas and work on their machines at the same time.

Rain lashed against the gun that crouched like a predator in the middle of the square. Its exterior was smooth and metallic and reminded Danny of cannons he had seen in space films. It was about the size of a small car and was welded to a large base that looked like it had been bolted to the ground. The weapon appeared to be ball-bearing, with the ability to swivel and shoot in any direction. Cables thicker than his forearm snaked around its base, disappearing into the ground.

"You built this whole thing today?" Danny wondered as his mother's anxiety buzzed beside him.

The agents close enough to hear him swivelled their heads at his comment. The two that he recognised as his regular hunters, and who had spoken to his mother only a minute earlier, shifted so that they stood right in front of the trio.

"We assembled it today," the taller one answered, and Danny wondered how he could see anything in the gloom from behind those dark glasses. Danny stared at the man's face, right where his eyes should be, smirking when the agent turned his head to look away.

The other agent reached out, his hand sinking through the space that Danny's shoulder should have occupied, and Danny's grin grew wider. "It's handy having a parent with ghost powers," he teased, squeezing his mother's arm as he sensed her amusement. "I don't even need an umbrella." Not that one would have functioned very well in this weather anyway – the wind gusted far too strongly, and Danny felt a stab of sympathy for the others before reminding himself that they had chosen to stay out in this storm.

He knew why he'd come as his human self – they'd _discussed_ this already – but he was still nervous. It was better to be in as much control as possible. If he came as a human, he asserted himself as the one in charge – Danny would choose when to tell them the truth, not the other way around.

Besides, if he had flown in there as his ghostly self who knows how many of the agents would have shot him on sight?

His parents moved closer to the gun and Danny allowed himself to be towed along. They drew close enough to touch it and the irrational urge to run his hands over the smooth metal surface was almost too strong for Danny to ignore. He wrenched his gaze away from the weapon, looking instead at the agents gathered around them. Male and female, they all looked similar to each other – plain hairstyles where it hadn't been shaved off, white suits, and dark glasses that reflected the portable floodlights. No real defining features whatsoever.

"Where's Phantom?" one of them asked, her voice clipped as irritation swirled around them.

Danny reminded himself that he was the one in control even if it didn't really feel like it right now. He could choose what to do. Several agents had gathered around them as the rest continued to pack up equipment that had been scattered over the cobblestones. Feeling hemmed in, Danny took a step back. His movement tugged on Maddie's arm but she didn't let go. He felt something brush against his back with the slightest whisper of proximity and he jolted forwards again, away from the dark metallic surface of the gun that was still very much able to blast him to smithereens.

The agent who had spoken seemed amused, her emotion eddying around him as she watched that little display. Danny tried to look confident by squaring his shoulders and angling his chin slightly upwards. He tried to exude confidence in the hope that they would back off, and he was suddenly very grateful for his mother's steady support as she bolstered him with a wave of determination.

Danny realised that nobody had responded to the woman's question. His parents had told him that this was his call – _he_ could choose what to say and when to say it.

It wasn't much, but Danny decided that if these agents were going to find out anyway then he might as well exert his control while he still had it. He released Maddie's arm, dropping his hand down by his side and remaining intangible.

The rain fell straight through him.

Realisation began to drizzle through the sodden air and Danny stood still, waiting to see what they would do. None of the agents seemed prepared to break the moment and he was acutely aware of the way the wind snapped their clothes against their bodies with the slap of wet fabric. He was unruffled in comparison, hair and clothing light and airy in a way that almost defied gravity.

"I heard you wanted my ectosignature," he finally said.

The agents that his mother had spoken to earlier were the first to move. One of them – slightly taller than the other – produced something from his pocket that looked pretty similar to the blood pressure cuff that Jack had been working on before dinner. "Mr. Phantom, I presume?" the man asked.

Danny stood stiffly, squaring his jaw and trying to appear confident. He held his ground as the two men stepped into his personal space, trying not to be unnerved by the dangerous satisfaction that he felt from them.

When they reached for him he was as insubstantial as air.

"Let's get something straight here," Danny snapped, unfettering his core just enough that he could see the reflection of his glowing green eyes in their dark glasses. "The past three years have been an absolute _nightmare_ because you wouldn't let my parents tell me anything. I didn't know about them, they didn't know about me, and I'm still _beyond pissed_ at you guys. I protect this town from some pretty nasty ghosts, so you don't _touch_ me unless I say so."

The shorter agent pressed his lips together in a thin line. "We would appreciate your co-operation for our research."

Danny snorted. "You had Vlad for twenty years and you still bother my mum. You're not gunna find out anything new from me. Leave us alone or you can deal with the ghosts yourself."

It was an empty threat, but he hoped that they didn't know that.

Their discomfort was as swollen as the dark clouds overhead. He wondered if they knew that he could sense their emotions, but before Danny could try to squeeze more out of them the agent holding the glowing cuff gave a sharp nod. "If you step out of line we'll take you down," he warned.

Danny trickled a chill into his voice that wasn't entirely human. "I don't plan on it."

His parents' surprise at the tense conversation radiated from where they stood beside him and Danny was grateful that they hadn't interrupted. He guessed that his mother had sensed his resolve and understood that he needed to do this himself. The Guys in White were bullies, just like Dash, and Danny was tired of taking the lickings. He got that enough from the ghosts already.

He shucked off his intangibility with a shift in perspective and the rain began to weigh him down immediately. His hoodie that was more for show than actual warmth was wet on the shoulders and down his arms in moments, and Danny's fringe clung to his forehead and began to drip into his eyes. He phased off the jumper, passing it to Jack before standing in front of the agents again.

They were waiting for him, irritation seething from the shorter one while the obvious leader of the two was simply amused. Despite seeming to have the upper hand Danny suddenly felt exhausted at the prospect of constantly having to deal with these men on such a personal basis. He stuck out his arm, nodding at them in vague permission.

The cuff slid across his skin with the uncomfortable rub of wet canvas and the second agent held out his own arm as a stable surface for Danny to prop his wrist against. The first agent pulled the cuff tight, pressing down the Velcro and plugging the trailing cord into a PDA in a snap lock bag to keep it dry. He tapped something on the screen and the cuff began to inflate around Danny's bicep, growing tight in the same way that a normal blood pressure cuff would.

They had done this the normal human way in their biology class during a lesson a few weeks earlier, and the familiarity was enough to soothe Danny in what was otherwise an incredibly absurd situation. "You can't just scan me or something?" he joked.

The pinch on his skin began to slowly decrease and Danny forced himself to keep his arm still as rain trickled down his back and beneath the waistband of his jeans. His shirt was now clinging to him, and water had rushed through the canvas of his shoes as it swirled around their feet. "Ectosignatures can be complicated," Maddie supplied from off to the side. "There are usually a few layers, especially if you have an elemental section in your core."

Danny hummed as the cuff finished deflating. "That was pretty painless," he admitted, withdrawing his arm and unpeeling the Velcro with a satisfying ripping sound. "What, no needles? Blood samples? Trying to cut me into tiny pieces to study my molecules?"

He knew it was a dark stab at humour, but the way the agents tensed was worth it. Danny couldn't really discern what they were thinking though. Lightning cracked overhead, jumbling his thoughts, and all he could sense was a vague blend of satisfaction and anticipation. It was almost as though they were waiting for something to happen.

Danny glanced around, shifting himself back into intangibility with an instinctive shake as he phased off the water that currently covered him. Something wasn't quite right but he couldn't pinpoint what the issue was. Maddie was anxious as well, and he looked over at her with a frown.

There was another flash of lightning and a younger-looking agent squawked as he tripped over his own feet. A jumble of items that he had been carrying clattered to the ground, one of them a glass container that shattered as it hit the cobblestones.

Green mist billowed out from the broken containment unit, unaffected by the driving rain, and ice flooded Danny's limbs and gathered in his lungs in a freezing breath. He shifted into a more stable stance, curling his hands into fists that glowed with carefully controlled charges. The agents shifted away from him, and the one on the ground scrambled to their feet with a shout.

"Who keeps a ghost in a glass container anyway?" Danny scoffed as the mist began to solidify into a familiar shape. "Ugh, you've _gotta_ be kidding me."

"Whelp," the ghost sneered. Raindrops pinged against his hollow armour, the ecto-fire of his Mohawk burning strong despite the downpour.

"Hey, helmet-hair," Danny drawled, "the Guys in White caught _you?_ The Ghost Zone's 'greatest hunter'?" He punctuated those final words with finger quotations, the continued sizzle of ectoplasm around his hands reassuring in such an off-kilter situation.

Skulker spread his hands wide. His eyes blazed and fury rolled off him in overwhelming waves. Danny responded by unfettering his own core, pounding the ghost with irritation. This was the way he had become accustomed to communicating – no nuances of inference that he needed to delicately decode as subtext to conversations. This was far blunter, just shoving base annoyances at the opponent and receiving their emotional swings in return.

Danny tried to ignore his mother's concern, flicking some confidence her way. He could handle this…

A blast arced through the darkness and its neon beam barely missed Skulker. It streamed past the hunter with a brightness that hurt Danny's eyes before slamming into Maddie's shoulder.

"Mum!" Danny cried, throwing up a shield and turning towards her shout of pain.

"I'm okay," she grunted. She was tangible now, the rain quickly plastering her fringe to her face. Her hand was clasped over the site of injury and she partially leaned on her husband, breathing heavily as Jack tried to take a look at the injury. Dark blood and bright ectoplasm seeped through the gaps in her fingers. "I'm okay," she said again, resignation brushing against Danny's anger in a dull touch that lacked the vibrant _awareness_ of two-way communication. "It's just shorted out my powers."

Danny spun to face the threat again, glaring at the agent who had released the shot. "Watch your aim!" he spat, dropping his shield and stalking towards Skulker. "And _you!_ I'm a bit too busy right now for your stupid games!"

He knew that he was being caustic, and that such an outward display of anger probably wouldn't help to improve his relationship with the Guys in White, but right now Danny couldn't bring himself to care. His limbs had turned to ice, the tips of his fingers frozen with rage. He didn't know who he was the angriest at – Skulker for being a jerk, the Guys in White for what was obviously a setup, or himself for thinking that this evening would actually go smoothly. His face was so cold that he couldn't even feel it anymore and the raindrops close to him eyes grew brighter with the illumination from how brilliantly he must be glowing. The air crackled as little wisps of energy snapped around him like tiny bolts of lightning.

Skulker's cocky attitude faltered, the flames of his hair diminishing as he floated back a few paces. "Oooh, someone's pissed," he taunted, his stupid hollow voice tinny in the storm.

"You have one chance to back off," Danny warned.

Skulker's indecision lingered for a second longer before Danny was slammed with a resurgence of the ghost's typical arrogance. "Your pelt will be mine!" he roared, jerking his arms in a movement that triggered blasters to unfold from panels in his greaves. They fired small rockets that fizzed like sparklers, and the agents dived to the ground as Danny sidestepped the shot with a simple movement.

"Skulker, I'm really not in the mood," he warned, pushing against the mood with his own anger. The agents hung back with blasters in their hands but none raised to fire, and he wondered if they weren't shooting because they didn't want to risk hitting each other or if there was another, more sinister reason.

Danny rolled his eyes and took a step back into a more stable stance. Something crunched under his heel, and even though Skulker's guns were beginning to glow again and he shouldn't take his eyes off his opponent Danny glanced down to see what he had inadvertently stepped on.

A sealed plastic bag was beneath his shoe, the PDA inside crushed from the pressure of his foot. The agent who had thrown himself down to avoid Skulker's rockets had his hand outstretched, reaching for the bag, but his emotions were as calm as a still summer day and Danny knew in an instant that this had been deliberate…

A rocket whizzed by his head, trailing sparks like a firework in the darkness. The other one collided with Danny's chest with a sickening crunch and he was thrown backwards by the impact. He landed on top of the agent, a sharp elbow digging into his back as Danny wheezed for air. It took a moment for the pain to hit and he whimpered when it did. He'd lost intangibility again, and he rolled off the struggling man, trying to blink sudden tears and rain from his eyes. He needed to focus, the danger was still there, but that rocket had sent bolts of energy through him that made his core fuzzy… Water whirled around his fingers as he pushed himself onto his hands and knees, ignoring the searing pain in his ribs, and then a large hand closed over Danny's head and _yanked._

Danny yelped as he was lifted off the ground by his hair. He couldn't phase, his core felt like it was deep underwater, and Danny grasped Skulker's arm in an effort to take some of the weight off his scalp. Using this new leverage, Danny swung his lower body forwards, his knee slamming into the seam where Skulker's abdomen met his hips. The impact left a good dent in the metal, and Skulker grunted as Danny repeated the motion. The distraction was enough for the hunter's grip to loosen, and Danny tugged himself out of the hold on his hair.

As soon as his feet hit the ground he jabbed an uppercut beneath Skulker's chin. It wasn't powerful enough to remove the helmet – Danny noticed some sort of buckle in the crevice beneath his ear that hadn't been there before – but the force still sent the ghost reeling backwards.

"Does anybody have a thermos or something?!" Danny shouted. He'd left his at home, lulled into a false sense of security that had come from knowing his mother's secret. The agent that he had landed on a moment earlier had gotten to his feet by now, sidling away with a shake of his head.

Skulker had already recovered from the hit and unsheathed a long hunting knife that began to glow red like the element in the heater at home. Raindrops sizzled on its surface and Danny pulled a face.

"You're toast," the hunter snarled.

"Too bad I hate toast," Danny shot back, "though with your complexion you could probably use some time in our toaster."

He had been in human form for too long – they needed to take the fight into the air so nobody else got hurt. His core was steadying again, the interference from the rocket's impact fading away, and his powers rushed back online like someone had flicked a switch. Danny felt his gut clench as lights began to flicker on along the length of the giant gun next to him. He had to wrap this up quickly and get out of range, since the broken PDA at his feet probably wasn't going to be able to input his ectosignature in time.

"Turn the gun off!" he snapped at the agents.

Skulker lunged at him and Danny ducked out of the way of the blade.

"It's automated," the female agent from earlier shouted. "It takes half an hour to deactivate!"

Danny dodged another swing, slamming an ectoblast into his assailant's helmet. Skulker reeled backwards again and Danny took the opportunity to sweep away his human form. The light of his transformation rings was unbearably bright, far brighter than the floodlights that struggled to illuminate the square, and Danny brushed white bangs away from where they dripped into his eyes and threw himself into the air.

His anger had built into utter fury but he still wasn't sure to whom it was directed.

The tip of Skulker's blade bit into his bicep and Danny swore before he could stop himself. It was as hot as it looked, and he sent a blast of ice in the direction of the weapon before shooting himself up into the sky.

Turning intangible again to try to keep the rain out of his eyes, Danny hovered just beneath the clouds. The storm buffeted him with raw waves of power, wind searing through his insubstantial body and electricity flickering in the clouds just above his head. His core sang in response and Danny felt a grin creep across his face. Everything else fell away as for a wonderful moment of freedom it was just him and the raging energy.

Skulker was rising fast, his Mohawk streaming behind him in a ribbon of flame as he brandished the hunting knife, and Danny raised his own glowing hands in preparation for a fight.

A blast whizzed past him, not from the approaching enemy but from somewhere off to his right. Danny twisted to avoid Skulker's swing, scowling at the person who had joined them in the sky. "Lightning's a thing you know!" he shouted, freezing the joint in Skulker's shoulder to make it harder for the ghost to fight with that knife. "You're in a metal suit!"

"What do you care?!" she screamed over the weather, and Danny broke away from Skulker as an arc of energy streamed through the space between them.

He rolled his eyes and blasted Skulker in the face again – that stupid helmet just wasn't coming _off!_ – and then zipped through the air until he was floating in front of the Red Huntress. "Catch him, would you? I don't have my thermos."

She raised her gun in response and he ducked out of the way, chuckling as her blast nailed the ghost that had been sneaking up behind him. Skulker was sent cartwheeling backwards, and Danny rose closer to her again. Not that she couldn't take a hit or two, and given the chance she would probably shoot him as well, but he wasn't sure if her suit would be able to withstand a direct lightning strike…

Several things slammed into him with a terrific force that practically threw him on top of the huntress, and Danny shrieked as the pain tore through delicate organs and dug deep into his core. He didn't know what had happened to him, just that something was awfully wrong and he _hurt_ , but then his ghost form slipped through his thoughts like water and Danny Fenton barely managed to wrap his arm around Valerie's ankle as he fell.

Rain streamed into his eyes and he held on with everything he had as wind buffeted his dangling body. His grip felt like it was going to slip off her boot and he swung his other arm up, hooking it over the edge of her board. The movement tugged at the painful lines inside him and he _screamed,_ something metallic strong on his tongue and pouring over his lips when he opened his mouth.

"Val," he choked, kicking his legs in the wild air as he pressed his cheek against the smooth metal of her board. He wasn't even sure if she could hear him over the storm and he could only count himself lucky that she didn't kick him off. Down in the darkness below Danny could just make out the green blur of Skulker's falling body. Whatever had happened, it had caught both ghosts indiscriminately.

Something crackled in the air around them and Danny glanced up at the clouds in horror. His core was on fire, melting through his limbs and tearing horrible choking cries from his chest with every breath, but Danny pushed past all of that and flourished his hand as best he could without letting go of the only thing stopping him from falling into the night. A transparent green shield materialised around them and Danny's core _burned_ hotter than anything he had ever felt except maybe the portal, and a blinding stream of lightning exploded against its surface with an intensity that no man-made weapon had ever hit him with.

His ears rang with the instant explosion of thunder and his shield collapsed as the lightning disappeared, but the image of the red huntress gazing down at him as she was illuminated by the energy was seared into his vision. Her horror buffeted over him, and Danny tried to say something, _anything,_ but when he opened his mouth more blood and ectoplasm gushed out and dripped onto the board beneath him.

" _Danny?!_ " she cried, voice tinny in his ringing ears, and he could only hope that her suit had protected her from the thunder's intense noise.

"Land," he choked wetly, jerking his head towards the floodlights far below them. The initial shock was beginning to wear off and he realised that he'd been stabbed by several long, thin projectiles that had driven their way through him to reach his core. They cut through his chest and abdomen, and he guessed that at least one of them had stabbed a lung from the way he was struggling to breathe.

Valerie didn't move, her emotions a mess of guilt and terror and other horrible things as the two of them floated in the tempest. Danny tightened his arm around her leg, unable to stop himself from sobbing. The sounds coming out of his mouth were strange in his own ears, twisted into choking gasps that splattered her board and her boots with more dark blood and glowing ectoplasm. " _Please,"_ he begged.

For another long moment nothing happened, but then vertigo tugged at his stomach and Danny tried his best to hold on as they dropped out of the sky.


	8. Grounded

A high-pitched whine penetrated the white noise of rainfall. The giant gun swivelled on its ball-bearings, swinging to point directly upwards, and loosed several shots into the darkness.

A faint scream filtered through the deluge and Maddie's heart clenched. "No," she breathed, tilting her head back and trying to gaze up into the night. She could see nothing but the falling rain that streamed into her eyes. Everything had gone wrong so quickly and guilt clawed at the spaces beneath her ribs.

She clasped her hand over her shoulder like a vice, and blood and ectoplasm seeped between her fingers from the burn and mingled with the rain on her waterproof jumpsuit. She pushed internally against her unresponsive core but it slid through her thoughts, there but far too insubstantial for her to catch hold of. Every part of her screamed that she needed to be able to use her powers again, that she _needed_ to help Danny up there in the darkness.

She hated how useless it made her feel.

Lightning split the sky far overhead and its brightness cut through the artificial haze that surrounded them. It was too far away to be certain, but Maddie thought she saw a flash of green against the white light.

Something smashed into the top of the van and she spun at the hollow crash. She clenched her hands into fists and squinted through the dark downpour, relief flooding through her when she recognised the armoured ghost instead of her son. His outfit had been blown apart by the impact and pieces of metal scattered across the square. The helmet rolled forlornly along the cobblestones in an awkward asymmetrical path similar to that of a football, loping gently to a standstill just outside the floodlights' direct beam. The Mohawk spluttered in a valiant effort to stay alight before dimming down to the faintest wisps, the helmet's eyes growing dark as the electronics within completely shorted out. A small green blob crawled out of the broken mouth with a grunt and stuck up its middle finger before fading out of the visible spectrum.

"GHOST!" Jack bellowed, diving for the helmet. He turned it over in his hands and upon finding it empty he drop-kicked it into the night. It sailed across the square and clattered to a stop on the footpath across the street. "That'll learn ya!" he crowed. "Stay away from my family!"

Maddie turned her face toward the sky again. The floodlights caught the rain and made it difficult to see beyond their reach, casting a hazy illumination that made everything seem more surreal. She blinked water out of her eyes, brushing away the hair that had stuck to her forehead and cheeks. Rain trickled beneath the collar of her suit and Maddie shivered reflexively at the feeling - it wasn't exactly _cold_ against her skin anymore, but the sensation alone was uncomfortable.

The gun that started all this returned to its normal position, sitting quietly like nothing had happened in the first place. Maddie clenched her teeth at the thought. "If Danny's still up there then why isn't it shooting at him?" she wondered.

Jack looped his arm around her waist, his soggy presence warm at her side. The sensation was comforting in its familiarity, and made her remember late-night ghost hunts in all sorts of weather. The contact soothed her thoughts before they became too overwhelming.

"He'll be okay," he reassured her. "He always is."

Maddie shook her head. She opened her mouth to speak but then a mechanical whir filled the night.

The familiar form of the Red Huntress descended into view, her hoverboard's engine protesting the extra weight hanging off its front. Danny was draped over the board with his lower half dangling freely in the air. The first thing Maddie noticed was the terrible sobbing that came from her son and she tore away from her husband, running to stand beneath the board.

"Give him to me!" she shouted, reaching as high as she could. Her injured shoulder burned like someone had pressed a knife against it, but she gritted her teeth and didn't drop her arm.

Red's head tilted. She paused in her descent and stayed high enough to be out of range. Maddie faintly heard her mumble, "What the hell…"

Something dark dribbled down onto Maddie's upturned cheeks, accompanied by drops that glowed like tiny green stars as they fell. "Red!" she shrieked, jumping as high as she could and making frantic grabbing motions in the air. Danny's sneaker was just that _tiny_ bit too high for her to touch, and her helplessness was made all the more infuriating by the first trickle of ice back into her veins. Her core was finally recovering from the shot ten minutes ago, but it was still far too slow, and the continued drops of Danny's blood and ectoplasm mocked her as they hit her face and outstretched hands. "He's bleeding!"

"You shot him!" the huntress shouted back. Her dark visor obscured her expression, but the acid in her tone was sharp and felt like a slap. "He's half human and you hunters _shot_ him!"

"No, I'm his mother!" Maddie tried to explain.

"I _know!"_ Red roared.

Everything seemed to pause. Maddie stared at the figure standing on the board as a strange feeling pricked her. This was like the other night - she was brushing against a secret so vast that it would change everything. A gust of wind swept against her and Maddie felt like her life was being tugged in an entirely new direction, one where the old rules no longer applied.

Danny made a choking sound and kicked his legs feebly in the air. "Mum," he gasped, and the sound tore at her heart.

The Red Huntress still didn't move.

"I can help him," Maddie insisted. The cold from her core was stronger now, and freezing static sent pins and needles through her outstretched hands. She channeled the energy to build up behind her eyes and hoped that it was enough to make them glow. She could see herself in Red's mirrored visor, and the shining green reflection was jarring against the darkness. Maddie hoped that it would be enough. "I'm a halfa too. See my shoulder - they shot me so I couldn't fly up there with him. Thank you for catching him, but _please,_ let me help him now."

The agents stirred at her words and their frustration brushed across her awakening senses, but Maddie was just too far done with this day to care about their policies anymore.

Red's fury had dulled, a shocked suspicion filtering across the space between them. "You hunt ghosts," she said.

Maddie scowled at her. "It's complicated. We can talk later," she suggested, "when my _son_ is no longer _bleeding."_

Convinced, the Red Huntress descended the rest of the way. Maddie wrapped an arm around her son's waist as soon as she could reach him. "I've got you, Danny," she soothed. "Let go now."

His weight shifted into her and Maddie lifted him away from the board. He stiffened at the movement and let loose an unholy scream, digging his fingers into her forearms. Maddie sank to the ground, trying to cradle him in her lap as Danny continued to cry out with every movement. A familiar weight descended beside her, and she was grateful for Jack's firm presence.

When she could finally see Danny's face she felt like her world was going to collapse.

His skin was paler than she had ever seen it, with blood and ectoplasm dribbling over his lips with every breath. Cold, bloodless fingers clutched at her hands and his breath rasped with fluid.

"Mum," he gargled. Blood bubbled forth in a fresh wave, spilling over his lips and running down his neck. The Red Huntress landed as well and crouched before them, producing a roll of gauze from a compartment of her suit. "It's not much, but maybe it'll help," she offered, and began to unwind the fabric.

Danny's shirt clung to him with a mixture of fluid, its original colour lost in the spreading stains. A metallic glint peeked through holes in the fabric, and Maddie lifted the ruined garment away from his skin. Her core was rapidly growing stronger now, and she phased the shirt off her son's body in a movement that she hoped looked far more confident than she felt.

The first thing that struck her was the metal rivets scattered across his body. Judging from the way blood poured from his mouth and pooled around the wounds she judged that they must be deep, probably with some sort of spike or probe attached. There were five of them, shaped like barnacles and roughly the size of her fist, and their sharp edges dug into the skin.

"Spikes," Danny gasped, a hand fluttering against the one embedded in his chest. "M'core."

Maddie shushed him as the Red Huntress grimly pressed a pad of gauze against one of the rivets lower down on his stomach. Jack followed suit, balling up Danny's red hoodie that he still held from earlier and pushing it over another one. Danny sobbed at their touch.

His panic buffeted against her, and Maddie realised that she hadn't been helping the situation. She sent out the most soothing thoughts she could, wafting peace between them like softly falling snow.

"I know it hurts, just hang on," she coaxed. Blood welled around her fingers and she bit back a sob, hooking her fingers over the edge of a barnacle. It stayed stubbornly tangible despite her efforts to phase it out so she pulled as hard as she could.

Danny screamed again, bucking in her lap as she tugged at the rivet. It refused to budge and Maddie's slick gloves lost purchase on the metal.

"How do I get these off?!" she shrieked, glancing at the agents frantically. Several had moved closer, forming a loose circle around the group on the ground, and their impassive satisfaction sent an icy shard of fear into her heart.

"We'll take him with us," Speckles insisted. The smugness in his smile made Maddie want to blast him in the face but she held herself back, trying to keep her breathing under control as Danny shuddered against her.

This had been their goal from the beginning.

The thought made her feel sick. "No," she countered. "I know how to help him."

"This is not up for negotiation," Bright Eyes snapped. He held a gun in his hand, its ominously-glowing barrel pointed directly at her. The agents pressed closer with their own guns leveled at her head, and Maddie clutched at her son as control of the situation slipped further and further away from her.

The Red Huntress pulled away and Maddie tried not to feel betrayed. She sensed a faint glimmer of determination from the masked woman, but it was quickly drowned out by the panic that streamed from her husband and son. Danny was beginning to tremble, the physical shock from being shot painfully obvious as he continued to take shallow, rasping breaths and blood gushed steadily from his mouth. Maddie wanted nothing more than to start healing him, but she couldn't do that until the metal was removed from his body.

Something cold and hard pressed against the back of her head and she flinched - she knew the barrel of a gun when she felt one. With agents pressing in with weapons from every side she knew that there was no chance to escape.

"Hold it," a voice snapped, and Maddie frowned at the sight of Red standing right next to the the giant gun. Her suit was still there, but her gloves had disappeared. She had a phone in her bare hand and was holding her other arm above it to try to keep it dry. "This is livestreaming to the Amity Park Ghostwatch Facebook page right now," she said. "There are already viewers. I'm showing them that you agents just shot human Danny Fenton and now you're trying to hide the evidence!"

The agents went still and their anxiety bled through the air.

"I saw you shoot him, and now you're holding a _gun_ to another person's _head!"_ the huntress shrieked when nobody moved. Danny's breathing was raw and ragged, and loud enough to be easily heard over the drumming of the rain.

"They're possessed," Bright Eyes responded.

Red snorted. "My suit has sensors which are telling me that they're _not_ possessed," she countered. "Your guns shot them with ectoblasts, so that's where the ectoplasm is coming from."

The pressure of the gun against the back of her head lifted, and Maddie sagged against her husband with a giddy wave of relief. The agents were restless now, and several of them looked towards Bright Eyes for answers. That was interesting - she had been under the impression that he was a simple field work grunt with how often he was seen running around the town in all kinds of weather. In contrast, here amongst his colleagues he appeared to be in some sort of authoritative position. As the wind snapped at their hair and clothing he inclined his head.

At that single non-verbal signal the agents surrounding them dispersed, hurrying to gather rain-soaked equipment in silence. The Red Huntress stood her ground, phone continually aimed at the scene. "How do you get those things off him?" she called.

Maddie frowned up at where Bright Eyes still stood above her. "Red's right," she said. "Get these out of my son."

The agent's mouth pressed into a hard line and he crouched in front of them. The Red Huntress moved closer, her phone angled so that she could still catch what was going on. The threat of the livestream seemed to be keeping the Guys in White accountable, and Maddie found that her feelings toward the masked huntress had softened considerably over the past few minutes.

Danny moaned and dug his fingers into the skin around one of the rivets.

"Hold on," she coaxed. Her boy closed his eyes, and the thought of what might be happening inside his body made her want to scream. She could sense the way his core stuttered, its typical strong signature fluctuating as he tried to keep himself awake. His powers were probably the only thing keeping him with her right now, but even that was fading as fast as sunlight disappearing in the evening. She needed to get him home and into an ectoplasmic bath. His core would be able to heal practically anything if it was just given sufficient energy to do so…

He flinched when Bright Eyes touched his bare skin, eyes snapping open to meet hers. Maddie pressed against his panic reassuringly. "We'll get these out of you," she explained, "and then you can get treatment." She wanted so desperately to wrap him in her arms and hold him close. Maddie contented herself with thinking about how much she loved her son and how proud she was of him. The warm emotions acted similarly to a hug, and a moment later Danny relaxed a bit in her lap. The edge was taken off his panic, and he pushed back against her emotions with his own weary determination. He hadn't given up yet, and neither would she.

Bright Eyes had produced a small case from the pocket inside his jacket, and he pulled the zipper open. Upon glimpsing what was inside the case Maddie tensed, drawing her arm tighter around her son before she could stop herself. Danny's fear spiked in response to her increased stress and she wrestled with herself to calm down.

"What's that?" Jack demanded. His suspicion was sour and Maddie was grateful for the support as he snaked his arm around her waist.

The agent removed the syringe from its foam-lined case. It was filled with a dark liquid that made her frown. "A stabiliser," he said, jerking his head slightly in the direction of Red and her phone. "We don't want anything delicate inside him to be hurt further."

Maddie ground her teeth. They couldn't say much more with the video being broadcast online, but he traced a hand down Danny's body in a way that could be interpreted on the livestream as simply feeling the damage. It left a smear of blood down her son's heaving chest and stomach that followed the shape of his core.

"Gun' pass out," Danny wheezed. His face was paper-pale, the skin stretched over his cheekbones and sinking into hollowness around his eye sockets. His breathing fluttered with his eyelashes.

She shifted one hand beneath him as surreptitiously as possible and turned her glove intangible so that flesh met flesh, channelling energy down her arm, through her fingers and into his body. Danny took a shuddering breath in response, spluttering a bit and tightening his fingers around her other hand. His gratitude swelled between them and she returned the squeeze.

She didn't trust that syringe, but wind continued to buffet against them and rain poured from the sky in an unrelenting stream as Danny bled onto her legs. She knew that he could sense her indecision, and Maddie motioned towards the needle. "It's a stabiliser," she repeated. "It'll help get the metal out of you. Do you want it?"

She knew he could read her uncertainty, and Maddie frowned at the sense of resignation she received in return. "Yeah," Danny croaked. He loosely laid his arm out and closed his eyes, wincing as Bright Eyes leaned closer and began prodding for a vein in the crook of his elbow. His breath caught as the needle slid beneath his skin but to his credit he didn't phase away.

The agent drew back after a moment and placed the empty syringe back into its case. "Give it a moment to work," he suggested, tucking the case back into the pocket inside his jacket. "It takes about a minute for blood to travel around-"

"I know," Maddie snapped, "I'm a scientist, remember?"

Danny shivered. "'S workin'," he breathed.

Bright Eyes pulled a device out of his pocket that looked similar to the spanner that had been used on Maddie's limiting watch the previous evening. This one was larger with its head shaped in a way that perfectly matched the metal barnacles attached to Danny's body. The agent clipped the spanner over one of the rivets and gave it a tug, and Danny yelped as the metal finally pulled away from his skin.

As the barnacle lifted she realised that it was still connected to him - a long metal shaft as thick as her thumb was attached to the center of the underside of the barnacle and had embedded itself in Danny's body. As the rivet was pulled away and the spike drew itself from his stomach, dark fluid shot through with strings of ectoplasm gushed from the point of entry.

Danny sobbed as the end of the spike pulled free from his body, pushing his hand over the wound once it was clear. The spike had been almost long enough to pass right through him, _definitely_ long enough to reach his core, and as she realised the full extent of what his injuries must be a metallic tang of bile soured the back of her throat. She swallowed it down and took a deep breath to maintain control over her roiling stomach.

Jack withdrew his arm from around her and reached across Danny's body. He pressed the bloody jumper over the now-open wound with hands that trembled as though ruffled by the wind. "Four more."

Maddie nodded. The tremor in her husband's voice matched the terror that rolled off him, and she forced herself to keep calm. The spanner clicked onto the next rivet and she stroked her son's hair. She visualised the soothing swirl of the portal and tried to project that peace into the space between them. It wouldn't do Jack much good, but hopefully Danny could latch onto this calmer emotion and ride out the stress of this entire experience.

The second spike slid from his body and Danny gave a quiet whine.

"Hang in there, Dann-o," Jack murmured, positioning the jumper so that the hood could be used to plug the gaping hole. "You're almost halfway."

Danny keened as the third rivet was wrenched out of the flesh just below his ribcage. Something that appeared too dense to be ectoplasm glowed on the tip of the spike. Her son's panic slammed into her again with full force, and a bleak sense of terrible _wrongness_ crept between them.

"Careful," she chided, sending the agent a glare. He didn't react to her scolding except to lever the fourth barnacle out from where it had settled. There was even more blood now, and Maddie stopped stroking Danny's hair so she could press against these new holes.

She glanced up at the Red Huntress. "Film the others to make sure they don't sneak up on us," she ordered.

Red tilted her head and swung the phone so that it faced away from them. As soon as she was sure that they were out of the frame Maddie poured freezing power through her fingers, forming a thick layer of ice that plugged the two holes. She motioned for Jack to lift the jumper and did the same for the ones that he had been tending to. Once the wounds were filled he returned the jumper to its original place, and she arranged the fabric so that it covered all of the ice in case Red needed to film them again.

Danny spluttered as the final spike pulled free from his torso, and a fresh wave of blood and ectoplasm poured from his mouth. He whimpered as Maddie instantly filled the hole with ice that plugged it all the way down to his core.

Bright Eyes got to his feet with the spikes gathered in his arms. "We'll be in touch," he promised.

"Piss off," the Red Huntress snapped, swinging the camera back to face him again now that the display of spectral powers was over. Maddie tugged the jumper so that it covered the last bit of ice on Danny's chest. The unconventional dressings probably wouldn't be very visible in the dim light but it was better not to risk it.

Jack moved to crouch in the spot where Bright Eyes had been. "I'll carry him," he offered.

Maddie wanted to protest. Danny was growing quieter now, and his emotions slowed down into a pained exhaustion that weighed heavily against her. She wanted to hold her son close and never let him go, but the burning in her shoulder reminded her that it would be easier for all of them if Jack carried him to the van. She carefully snaked her arm around Danny's back and helped to lift him into a more upright position, allowing Jack to take him into his arms.

Once Danny's weight was gone from her she lurched to her own feet, stumbling after Jack as he began to walk toward the RV. The Red Huntress walked alongside, phone still out and aimed in the direction of the agents.

Bright Eyes stepped forward and placed his hand on Maddie's arm. The stress of the entire evening rose within her like a tidal wave, sweeping away all restraint, and she drew back her fist and punched him in the jaw.

The impact was as satisfying as she could have hoped, and his sunglasses clattered to the ground. They stood there in stillness for a moment. Maddie's knuckles smarted with the familiar sting of a fight, and a thin stream of blood trickled from his split lip and mingled with the rain that dripped off his chin.

She had crossed a line, but with Danny's blood on her suit and a camera pointed at them Maddie felt far too vindicated to care about the Guys in White and their silly rules.

"Leave us alone," she hissed, dropping her hand and stalking in the direction of the car. There was a pause, and then the Red Huntress fell into step beside her as lightning cracked across the sky.


	9. Cicatrices

"You drive."

Valerie barely managed to catch the keys that Maddie tossed in her direction. Her heart fluttered at the notion, and if it wasn't for the bundle of metal in her hands she would have thought that she had misheard. " _Me?_ "

"Jack and I need to be in the back with Danny," she explained, and hoisted herself through the open back doors of the van. "I need you to drive us to Fentonworks while we try to keep his core stable."

"Shouldn't you call an ambulance?" Valerie insisted.

Maddie's mouth pressed into a tight line. "They won't be able to help much with this, and the Guys in White could take him from there." She pulled the door shut behind her, and Valerie was left standing in the rain with the keys clutched in her gloveless hand.

The rest of her suit was still in place, and rain streamed down her visor. Lightning cracked overhead and the downpour was so think that she could barely see the white lines that ran along the edges of the road. Pieces of the other ghost's mangled armour were still scattered across the ground and Valerie kicked one of them so that it clattered into the gutter.

The agents' vans pulled away from the kerb in a procession that appeared too perfect to have been unrehearsed. Valerie gritted her teeth at the sight, knowing that they had probably been watching her. They were a powerful organisation, and now she'd openly humiliated them. If they were anything like Vlad, they'd worm their way into her life and blackmail her with everything they could. She would have to be careful.

Time was wasting. She was the fearless Red Huntress of Amity Park! One of her only friends was bleeding out in the back of that RV, and he needed her to get him to safety.

Bitter thoughts of betrayal rose within her and she pushed them down. Her world had changed so quickly that she didn't know what to think anymore. Everything was so confusing right now, but she didn't have time to dwell on it yet. She'd do that later.

The thought of how much blood Danny had lost weighed against her, and Valerie jogged to the driver's side of the van. The door was dented and it took several good tugs for her to wrench it open. Getting into the seat was another hassle, since the area wasn't really built to accommodate metal battlesuits. Her knees scraped against the steering wheel and Valerie fished for the lever to slide her chair back a bit in the restrictive area. Sure, Jack could fit here with a bit of adjustment, but the position that the seat had just been in made her think that Jack hadn't been the last person to drive.

Valerie's hands shook as she slammed the door shut and jammed the key into the ignition. She really wasn't supposed to do this without a licensed driver sitting next to her, but the situation was a little too desperate for that. In the space behind the back seat she could hear Danny sobbing and his parents murmuring words that were lost beneath the constant drumming of rain on the roof. She curled her hand around the steering wheel and turned the key… and the van gave a terrific jolt, jerking as its engine cut out.

Figures. She knew that the van was a piece of crap but for it to not even turn on? They really needed a new one.

Valerie turned the key again, carefully this time. She pressed her foot against the brake in case it tried to move before she was ready… and the van jerked again, the engine making a terrible clunk before shutting down a second time.

"It's a manual!" Jack shouted.

Valerie swore and slapped the steering wheel. "I've never _been_ in a manual!" she snapped, peering into the darkness at her feet. Sure enough, there were three pedals there, which she hadn't even noticed in the stress of the situation.

She hoisted herself out of her seat, twisting through the gap between the two chairs so that she was in the back. Jack got out of the van with a huff, moving around the outside so that he could take her place behind the wheel.

Valerie climbed over the back seat as well, her helmet tapping against the roof as she pulled herself into the open area in the rear of the RV. The engine rumbled to life and as the car lurched forward she grabbed a rack of weapons that was screwed to the wall to brace herself.

"Sorry," she said, feeling strangely guilty.

Maddie didn't even spare her a glance. "Come help me, then."

The van jolted and Valerie stumbled, her grip on the weapons rack the only thing that stopped her from being thrown off her feet. Maddie was unaffected by the inertia, floating about an inch off the floor. Valerie had a fleeting thought of how convenient ghost powers seemed to be, but the sight of Danny brought her back to the situation at hand.

He lay on a metal table that looked like it had folded down from the wall. Blood and ectoplasm were all over his body, and still streamed from a gash in his arm. She hadn't noticed it before but it must have been from the fight with that armour ghost. Stinker? Sulker? It was sometimes difficult to figure out their names when Phantom seemed to communicate non-verbally half the time, and in a completely foreign language at others.

"Just let it go," Maddie was soothing. "Whatever you're hiding, it's okay now."

Valerie moved closer to them, bracing herself against the edge of the table and trying to ignore how quickly her heart was beating. "What's going on?"

Danny's eyes were squeezed shut and he gripped his mother's hand. Maddie held the battery pack from an ectogun above one of his wounds, drizzling ectoplasm from its split casing. The thick liquid dripped onto his skin and was immediately absorbed like spilled wine soaking into a carpet.

"He's still using his core," Maddie said. "I saw something when his powers got shorted out for a minute during the fight and I realised he's been changing his appearance." She turned back to him. "Danny, sweetie, I need you to let go of your illusion."

His head lolled in a vaguely negative gesture.

Valerie's thoughts clicked into place and she _knew_ what was going on. "You idiot," she hissed, gripping the table with one hand to keep steady while she used her other hand to gently cup his face. "We know what you're hiding, so stop wasting your energy."

"Doesn't use that much," he wheezed.

She lightly nudged his shoulder. "Stop it. When you're this hurt, _any_ energy is bad."

Maddie was staring at her and Valerie wondered how much she understood. She didn't know much about halfas' capacity for sensing emotions, but Danny always seemed to know exactly what to say for how she felt at any given time, so it wasn't too much of a stretch to guess that Maddie could feel the guilt welling within Valerie's heart.

Danny shuddered and they both held him in place as the van swung around a corner. "Alright," he rasped. He still looked awful, but somehow a tiny bit better than before, and Valerie wondered how much the concentrated ectoplasm dripping from the power cell had already helped. He was still paler than any living thing should be, but at least he no longer faded at the edges like an old polaroid photograph.

A soft glow rippled over him like stones dropping into a still pond, and his skin lost its perfect smoothness. Ridges of scars formed beneath the blood, so numerous that in some places they traced along his form like streets on a roadmap. There were roping slashes left by claws and blades, dark patches of fresh burns, silvery splashes from older ones, and beneath it all arced branching green tendrils of lightning…

"Surprise," Danny tried in a weak voice, smile transparent and fading fast. Despite the extra energy, he was flagging, though Valerie figured that that was to be expected with the severity of his injuries.

Valerie felt her heart stutter and Maddie made a strangled sound.

A large scar sliced across his face, beginning near his right temple and bridging over his nose before ending on the opposite cheek. It barely missed his eye and Valerie drew her hand away from his face as her eyes burned.

She had given that one to him. She remembered it clearly.

Danny groped for her hand, and his fingers were freezing as they bumped against hers. "S'okay," he breathed, and Valerie hadn't realised that it was possible to hate herself this much.

"Here," Maddie interrupted, and pressed the fuel cell into Valerie's palm. "Keep dripping it into his cuts. I'll go get another one."

Valerie held the small cube above the wounds in his chest, and the dripping ectoplasm glowed so brightly that looking at it left smears across her vision, like when you stared directly into a torch and then tried to see in the darkness. "How'd you concentrate ectoplasm this much?"

Maddie jimmied the fuel cell out of another blaster. "I'll show you sometime," she offered with a small smile. "We owe it to you."

Guilt pressed against her lungs like knives slipping between her ribs and Valerie winced. "No, you don't."

Maddie shook her head. "You saved us with that livestream trick," she said. Her fingers glowed with power and the plastic casing in her hands split apart. It took a moment, like when you cut yourself and for a second there's no blood, but then thick green ectoplasm began to drizzle out of the cracks like honey.

Valerie shifted so that Maddie could resume the spot beside her, and Danny groaned as the liquid streamed into his wounds.

"You don't owe me anything," Valerie insisted. "I've hunted him for _years._ "

"So have we," Maddie reminded her.

"A lot of these scars are from me."

"And you think they're not from us too?"

Danny grimaced. "Shuddup," he grunted. " _My_ stupid secret…" a hacking cough cut him off, and he rolled onto his side, grasping his chest with a choked sound. More blood and ectoplasm dribbled from his lips, and he leaned against Valerie with a moan.

"Lie down," she snapped, but he twisted his arm around her waist.

"Don't be mad," he rasped. "Not your fault."

He could sense something, she was certain, and guilt continued to well beneath her ribs like an encroaching tide. In different circumstances she knew she would have been frustrated by this mind reading or whatever it was, but as he tried to tighten his hug she just felt even worse. Danny was covered in scars and bleeding out in the back of his parents' van and she hadn't even apologised for anything yet. Why was _he_ trying to comfort _her?_

The van slammed to a stop. Valerie, unprepared for the loss of momentum, pitched to the side and hit the back of the seats. Her head slammed against the wall and although her helmet absorbed most of the impact it was still enough to fill her sight with tears. She blinked, trying to clear her vision without raising her visor to rub her eyes. Part of her felt wrong at that, like she didn't deserve to keep things a secret anymore when Danny had been revealed to so many people in one night, but the thought of her father's reaction when the Fentons inevitably contacted him was enough to keep her facade up for now. He'd learn about the livestream soon enough anyway, it would probably be on the morning news, but at least she could try to control the damage.

It took a moment for her eyes to clear, and she pushed back onto her feet with a groan. Danny had fallen halfway off the table, and his sobs were rough and gasping as his mother pulled him into her arms. Fluids dripped onto the floor and even with his core's supernatural help, Valerie wondered how he was still breathing. The concentrated ectoplasm must have had something to do with it, and once again she thought about how helpful ghost powers were.

It wasn't envy, but she caught the thought anyway and pushed it away before she could dwell on it.

The back doors of the van screeched open and Jack motioned to Valerie. "Go open the door," he ordered. She caught the keys for a second time that night and slipped past the Fentons, racing up the stairs and unlocking the front door for them. She propped it open with a shoe from the entryway and let herself in, turning on the lights and heading straight for the thick metal door with the yellow biohazard sticker. She propped this one open as well and jogged down the stairs. Her metallic footsteps rattled in her ears and she huffed at the sight of piles of guns and charging cables scattered across the floor. Trust the Fentons to have a lab full of safety hazards! She swept them aside as quickly as she could, trying to clear up the space for whatever they needed to do. If it was up to her she would have taken Danny to the hospital, consequences be damned, but she wasn't a halfa and maybe Maddie knew a better way to treat him.

Their feet sounded loudly on the metal staircase. Danny was cradled in his father's arms, looking so small and pale, and Valerie's throat clenched. She swallowed it down and ordered herself not to cry, _there would be time for that later_ , and she kicked a few more cables to the side. "What do you need me to do?"

"Put your gloves back on," Maddie ordered, and Valerie belatedly realised that her hands were smeared with stinging ectoplasm. She headed for the sink and rinsed it off, flinching as water rushed over the blisters that were already beginning to form. What had she been thinking, handling concentrated fuel cells with her bare skin?! Sure, she'd been distracted, but that was just plain stupid.

She patted her hands dry with a wince and put her gloves on, drawing closer to the Fentons. Maddie had dragged a containment tank into the middle of the room and wrenched the lid off, and she jerked her head in the direction of a hulking steel cylinder in a corner of the room. "That's the ectoplasm store," she said. "Go make sure the hose is connected and bring it here."

Valerie hurried over to the tank, ignoring her unease at the thought of storing such a huge amount of something as dangerous as ectoplasm. A large fire hose was bolted to the side of the tank next to a spigot and some gauges, and she gave it a tug to ensure that the connection would hold before unfurling the hose and stretching it back to the middle of the room. The Fentons were working together to lower Danny into the glass box, with Jack holding his shoulders while Maddie held his legs. His eyes were closed, limbs limp and breathing fluttering, and Valerie wondered if he had finally passed out. She dumped the end of the hose into the makeshift bathtub and rushed back to the tank of ectoplasm. She twisted the handle next to where the hose clamped to the side, sighing in relief as the neon yellow tube gurgled and bulged with liquid.

Green slime poured into the containment unit, and quickly rose to cover Danny's body. He moaned, twitching as his parents supported his head to prevent him from slipping under. Valerie turned the handle to stop the flow once his body was fully submerged, and she moved to stand near the Fentons.

The transparent green ectoplasm clung to him like honey, blooming dark with blood near the gaping wounds in his body. Valerie would have been worried at the sight if not for how peaceful he seemed. Danny looked much better already — his skin shone in the light from the glowing ectoplasm, and his complexion had warmed with colour back in his cheeks. His eyes were closed but his breathing was deep and steady, and the lines that had creased around his eyes and mouth were far less pronounced.

"That'll heal him?" Valerie asked. The burns on her hands smarted inside her gloves and she wondered how something that hurt her so easily had such a different effect on the dead. Though Danny _wasn't_ dead, and she frowned at how easily she'd almost generalised him. She'd have to think more about halfas later.

Maddie nodded and smoothed his fringe back from where it had stuck to his forehead. "If it has enough of an energy supply his core can heal practically anything except direct damage."

Something was off in her tone, and Valerie got the sense that things wouldn't be that easy. "You mean damage to his core?"

"Danny's core's immature," Jack piped in, dipping a cloth in the ectoplasm and gently wiping it across his son's face. "He's still developing, so if it gets hurt, it might not heal properly."

"But his core's fine, right?" Something tugged at her mind, the memory of one of those awful spikes pulling free from his body. Something think and glowing had glistened on the tip, and Danny had made the most gut-wrenching _sound…_

"All of the spikes hit his core," Maddie said. "I think one of them pulled out a bit."

Valerie bit down on her bottom lip and tried to ignore her sudden nausea. "Damn it. What'll that do to him?"

"It's hard to say," Jack said. "We haven't studied it much because a lot of weak ghosts mature pretty quickly and it's hard to catch them when they're freshly-formed. Halfas mature slower. It takes about ten years, right, Mads?"

Maddie nodded. "Hopefully it wasn't enough to cripple any of his powers." Blood and ectoplasm dripped down her arm and Valerie picked up a cloth from the pile at Jack's feet. She dipped it in the ectoplasm and held it out to Maddie.

"For your shoulder."

Maddie's eyes widened. "Thank you," she said, shifting to provide access to her injury. She was still cradling Danny's head to keep it above the surface so Valerie gently pulled away as much of the burned blue HAZMAT as she could and pressed the dripping cloth against the wound. She clumsily tied the cloth around Maddie's shoulder and upper arm, murmuring an apology as the woman winced.

Valerie's hands dropped back to her sides and she felt absolutely miserable. "Isn't there anything else we can do?" she whispered. "He lost a lot of blood."

Jack shook his head, dipping the cloth again and dribbling it over Danny's lips. Danny's eyelids fluttered and his tongue flicked out to collect the drops. Jack dripped more ectoplasm and Danny opened his mouth, eyes blinking open. They glowed green through the slits of his eyelids. "Ow," he rasped. "What happened?"

Maddie stroked his forehead with her free hand. "You passed out for a minute there."

"Oh." He closed his eyes and lay back against her support. "Ectoplasm's nice."

"The bath?"

"Mmm," he grunted. "Never done it before."

He was obviously still in pain, but he was talking again, so Valerie figured that the ectoplasm really did help. Now that things were less stressful, and the blood had been cleaned from his face, she could see some of his scars in more detail. She'd never realised that her attacks would leave lasting marks on Phantom, since his skin was always so smooth, but now the revelation that Danny had been hiding the scars with his powers weighed against her mind.

There was no excuse for this kind of damage. He had permanent reminders of her vendetta against him, and if he hadn't been so lucky in the past _she_ could have been the reason he was lying in a pool of ectoplasm in his parents' basement.

Maddie glanced at her sharply and Valerie belatedly remembered her hypothesis of an emotion-mind-reading power as Danny's brow furrowed. "Val," he whined.

She held up her hands and they smarted at the movement. "Sorry, don't worry about me."

He cracked his eyes open and squinted at her. "Talk later."

It was a promise that she found herself simultaneously looking forward to and dreading. The scrutiny of his parents did little to calm her nerves, and Valerie swallowed thickly as she realised that he had called her by her name. Danny looked so frail and tired as he floated in the glowing slime and she couldn't blame him for the slip, but she felt like her secret identity was beginning to dissolve around her.

Danny's next breath was cold enough to be clearly visible, and a similar stream of cloudy blue air rushed out of Maddie's lips. Before Valerie could wonder what it was the sensors in her suit began to beep, and the display on the interior of her visor indicated that a ghost had appeared down near the docks.

Danny whined. "Damn ghosts…"

Valerie tapped her glove on the side of the glass tank. "You stay there," she insisted when he frowned at her. "I'll get it."

"It could be powerful," he wheezed. "My mum-"

"Can stay here with you," Valerie insisted. "It's at the docks, so it's probably just that box one again. It's about that time of night, right?"

She didn't wait for him to respond, striding in the direction of the stairs. Her phone vibrated in her pocket with an incoming call and her stomach sank as she realised that she was now an hour over curfew. Her dad was going to be furious. "I'll drop by in the morning," she called over her shoulder. "Danny has my number, so text me if you need anything."

"Thanks," Maddie called, "and thanks for your help tonight. We really would have been stuck without you, Red."

Valerie waved her hand and jogged up the stairs, taking them two at a time. She let herself out of the house and locked the front door behind her, standing in the middle of the street and taking a deep breath before clicking her heels together. Her hoverboard folded out from the soles of her boots, and she shot into the sky and followed the beacon on her visor.

Her phone buzzed against her thigh again, and with a verbal command her suit tapped into its bluetooth and answered the call. "Hi, Dad."

"Where are you?" His voice was the deadly calm of a circling shark.

"I was helping a friend," she tried. Lights rushed past beneath her in a blur and rain poured as hard as before, so she raised her altitude a bit. The last thing she needed was to hit any particularly tall tree or veer into a high-rise building in this limited visibility.

"In the middle of the night?" he hissed.

She angled her chin petulantly even though he couldn't see her. "It was pretty sudden," she said, trying to keep her voice level as she swooped down toward the docks. "Sorry I didn't call you."

"What were you helping with?"

She chewed her lip and wished he'd just hang up. This was _not_ a conversation she wanted to have over the phone. "We were hanging out and I lost track of time. Sorry, I'm coming home now. I'll talk to you soon."

"I got a notification from Amity Park Ghostwatch," he said.

Green light flashed through the windows of one of the warehouses, and Valerie followed her blinking beacon to peer through the open door. "Oh," she mumbled, toggling her microphone so it wouldn't broadcast noise outside her suit and alert the ghost to her presence. "Well, see? I _was_ helping a friend. No hunting or anything like that. I'll explain in a minute?"

She was distracted, and couldn't see anything through the door except rows of ceiling-high shelves in dim security lighting. Valerie powered down her board and tiptoed into the warehouse, following a glow that shone from between two far shelves.

"How far away are you? I don't like you walking in this weather."

"You really think I'm walking?" she huffed as she crept through the building. This was ridiculous. He was aware that she still hunted ghosts, and she was a bit sick of dancing around the topic. "I'm flying."

"What if you get hit by lightning?"

"The suit protects me," she said. "It's like one of those lightning cage things." She reached her target rows and flattened herself against the shelves, peering around the corner.

Sure enough, the overalled ghost was floating in the middle of the aisle. Boxes bobbed in the air around him like flotsam and he was methodically dumping their contents onto the floor. "Beautiful," he cooed, running his hands over one of the boxes.

Valerie rolled her eyes and unclipped a thermos from her utility belt. She'd designed it only a few weeks ago after watching Phantom use his so successfully for years, and it had already become her favourite piece of equipment.

Her father's sigh crackled through the speakers, and he didn't sound as angry as she had thought he would. Valerie wondered if he had figured out that she wasn't flying yet. "I still wish you'd be safer," he grumbled. "We'll talk about it when you get home."

She uncapped the thermos, swinging around the corner and jamming her thumb against the button. A red vortex swirled out of the opening and caught the unsuspecting ghost in its radius. He howled and Valerie flinched at the sound as he was sucked into the thermos, glowing boxes and all.

"What was that?" her dad demanded.

"The wind," she lied, snapping the cap into place and hanging the thermos back onto her belt. "It's pretty bad out here."

Styrofoam peanuts were scattered across the floor and Valerie sighed. She jogged back through the building, pressed with the eerie sense that came from being in such a large industrial place without anybody else around. After a moment of silence her sigh was mirrored by her father. "I'll see you in a minute," he said.

She mumbled an affirmative sound and he hung up. Valerie headed back out the door, closing it behind her before tapping the heels of her boots and taking to the air once again. Her board hummed beneath her and felt safe and solid, and she tried to ignore thoughts of Danny falling into the darkness as she flew through the rain toward her home.


	10. Rend

Ectoplasm dripped down Danny's face and he shut his eyes as they began to sting. "Mmph," he mumbled intelligently, trying to move his hands to rub it off. Cold slime slipped over his cheeks and his arms were far too heavy to lift, so he turned his head away.

"Sorry," Jack murmured, and Danny felt a cloth swipe across his face. "I thought it was helping."

"It is," he managed to say. His slow, wheezing words tugged at a deep pain that he tried to ignore. "Got in my eyes though." The cloth dragged over his skin again and he blinked. The lights in the ceiling were hazy and far too bright, but as he squinted and blinked away involuntary tears, things came back into focus.

The ectoplasm felt so _good_ against his skin, like stepping into a cold shower on a hot Summer's day. It soothed his wounds, and he lay back and watched the lights above, the hum of hot fluorescence comforting in a way that he couldn't quite place. It helped to anchor him as his body buzzed with pain and stress. A hand was still under his head, holding it above the surface, and his mother's fingers gently stroked through his hair.

"Feeling any better?" she asked.

Danny shrugged and winced at the resulting pain. "A bit," he mumbled, and tried to decipher the sensation in his core. His parents' concern was like a blanket — it covered everything else in the room and stifled his senses. He nudged past the heavy interference and prodded at his core in an attempt to assess the damage. The problem was that everything hurt right now, but the bath felt nice against his skin, and he figured that it must be doing an incredible amount of good for his injuries.

It didn't matter that he'd passed out for a minute there, or that things still looked pretty bad. He was going to be fine.

Danny focused inward, and tried to block out external sensation. The ectoplasm lapped at his jawline and he paid closer attention to deep cycles of breathing. It was painful, but nowhere near as bad as before. He hoped that that meant that his lung had begun to repair.

He pushed further and reached for his core. There was a sensitivity there that worried him, and he prodded against it with the same dull sensation that came from nudging tweezers against a piece of glass in your foot. Nothing could really compare to giant needles that had stabbed his stupidly sensitive core, but like glass in your foot, Danny instinctively knew that if he pressed too hard or in the wrong direction, it would just make the pain worse.

He tried to feel for his powers one by one, but at the first tug of energy he realised that was a mistake. Every single puncture wound burned as though nothing else existed. His nerves melted into agony bordering on numbness, and Danny pulled away with a shriek. His core sunk back into its haze and he took a moment to re-orient himself before trying to reassure his parents that he was okay. They fluttered over him like worried birds with their chick, gloved hands skimming across his bare skin in feather-light touches.

"That hurt," he hissed. He knew that his mother had sensed what he had done, and was grateful that he didn't have to explain himself further.

"Give it a minute and tell me if you feel anything worse than the rest."

"Okay." Danny coughed, thick wetness catching in his throat, and pain ripped through him with the sudden jolt. He tried to sit up, but the congealing ectoplasm encased him as though he was swimming in honey. He struggled to move and breathe all at once. After a moment of panicked spluttering his hands breached the surface and flung ectoplasm everywhere as he gripped the edges of the tank and yanked himself as far upright as he could. His parents' hands were there in an instant, supporting him and thumping against his back as he wheezed, and fresh blood and ectoplasm filled his mouth. He spat, spluttered a few more times, and sagged against the hands holding him as the ringing in his ears died away and the overwhelming pain receded until he could think again.

"Ugh, coughing's bad right now," he whined, blinking away tears and frowning at the blood that streaked through the ectoplasm in a marbled effect. "Oh. That's weird."

"Hmm?" Maddie's glove slipped across his slick back and he leaned into her touch. It was difficult to ignore the stress in the room, but thinking about the strange non-mixing of his blood with the ectoplasm was distracting enough for now.

"The blood," he said, but his throat caught and he gave another weak cough. It dragged at his injuries and pain bloomed with every movement, and Danny stared at the swirls of red and green as he tried to breathe properly again. He had massive holes punched clean through to his core, and any thought of the possible ramifications was too much to handle right now, so he was grateful when he felt his father's anxiety shift into the focused enthusiasm that Danny liked to call 'scientist mode'. Sam and Tucker had teased him when he first coined the term, but it made things easier on difficult days to associate his parents' excitement with science rather than with tearing Phantom apart.

"They're immiscible." Danny raised his eyebrows at the comment and Jack's mouth curved into a tiny smile. "It means they don't mix together, like oil and water."

"Oh." Danny trailed his hand through the fluid and watched as the swirls broke apart, suspending little red globs in the glowing green. Talking hurt, but it was a distraction, so he kept going. "It doesn't float like oil."

"This ectoplasm's thick," Jack explained, and rubbed his fingertips together. He pulled them apart and strands of green stretched between them like a gooey spider's web. "It's pretty concentrated, but in natural ectoplasm the blood eventually floats."

"Unless it dissolves first," Maddie supplied, rubbing gentle circles into Danny's spine. He gave an appreciative murmur and tried to pay attention to her explanation. "Halfa blood's the only type that doesn't. Ectoplasm reacts violently with all other living tissue." She was still concerned, but he could feel her starting to settle as 'scientist mode' kicked in, and so long as she kept rubbing his back like that he didn't really care what they spoke about.

"Depends on the concentration, right?" he rasped. His words were slow and caught around syllables but at least he was talking. "Dash poisoned himself once from drinking my ectoplasm, remember?"

Jack chuckled. "He's lucky his stomach didn't dissolve."

"We wondered why you had ectoplasm at school," Maddie mused, and Danny gave a small nod.

"Yeah, you thought I'd grabbed a sample instead of a water bottle from the fridge," he said. Now that he thought about it, it was pretty crazy that his _half ghost mother_ had never realised that his core was active. Danny had taken to sipping ectoplasm from a black water bottle during class whenever his core felt a bit on edge, and one day Dash had somehow come to the conclusion that he was drinking soda during class. Dash, being the type of person that he was, had snatched up the drink and taken several swigs before realising that anything was wrong. He'd ended up in the hospital for a week, and everybody had fussed over Danny 'accidentally' mistaking what was apparently one of his parents' lab supplies for a bottle of water. There had been an entire review of lab safety in their house, and all samples were finally evicted from the kitchen fridge. Nobody knew how ectoplasm had made it to the fridge in the first place — Jack blamed ghosts, Maddie blamed Jack, and Jazz had lectured them both about becoming lax with laboratory safety.

Danny had innocently sat at the kitchen table the entire time and tried to hide his smirk. It didn't take long for Jazz to identify the _actual_ culprit. After that, Sam bought a bar fridge for the ectoplasm. It hid behind a fake wall panel at the back of Danny's wardrobe, alongside various weapons and other ghostly things.

Thoughts of Jazz sent a pang through his chest that had nothing to do with his injuries. He'd always found her protective attitude frustrating, but now that she was at a college halfway across the country, he realised that he missed her steady presence during stressful moments like this.

Maddie must have sensed his sudden melancholy, and she wafted cool peace over him like a gentle breeze. "You'll be alright," she soothed. "I was worried before, but you've got more colour now, and you're sitting up and talking."

The pain had ebbed to an unfamiliar throbbing in places that he didn't even know had nerves. He should probably let them know about that. "My core hurts," he said. "It's really bad."

"I'll check it once your injuries have closed up," Maddie said. "You're not destabilising so it's not urgent, and I don't want you to morph until you've healed enough to get out of this bath."

Danny instantly thought about the way his core had been checked earlier that day and grimaced at the memory. "Fair enough." He looked down at his body with detached fascination. The ectoplasm reached halfway up his chest, covering all of his puncture wounds except the highest one. The hole above the surface was no longer bleeding, and looked like it had been plugged with a scab made out of ectoplasm. It glowed with a luminescence that flared brighter every ten seconds or so. This was in line with his heartbeat and pulsing core, and he watched small tendrils of glowing veins as they branched out from the scab in every direction. "That was really fast," he commented. "Usually a bad injury takes a couple of days to heal this much."

"You still need a while longer before you get out," Maddie told him. "It'll be slower to heal internally because there's no direct contact with the ectoplasm."

Danny nodded. "Maybe lay me back down so all of me is covered again?"

"You sure you can breathe okay now?" Jack asked.

He managed a small shrug. "I think so."

They helped to lower him back, and Danny could almost ignore the pain with how nice the ectoplasm felt as it washed over his chest and shoulders. The room was quiet again, and he closed his eyes with a sigh. The deep inhalation hurt more than he expected and he realised that he'd just have to keep breathing shallowly until the delicate things inside him re-connected their torn edges.

The silence was beginning to stretch. Dark thoughts of slipping off Valerie's board and falling through the rain drenched his thoughts and Danny knew that he needed a distraction before he panicked. "Tell me about the other halfas," he murmured.

Maddie's fingers brushed through his hair again. "I wouldn't know where to start."

Danny huffed as he felt her hesitation. "Please?"

Peace wafted between them, and Danny cracked open an eyelid to watch as a soft smile crept onto her face. "They're people," she said, "just like us, with different lives and personalities. Some of us have lots of powers, some only have a few, and we live in clusters of lairs called clans. Some clans emphasise particular elemental cores, but most of them are a pretty even mixture."

Something sweet and sad caressed Danny like a gentle wind, and he thought that it might be nostalgia. He closed his eyes again and ran his hands loosely through the ectoplasm. "What's life like?" he asked. "The only clan groups I've visited much in the Ghost Zone are a medieval kingdom and the Far Frozen."

Surprise pierced the soft emotions in the room, and Danny responded by broadcasting his curiosity. Maddie patted his shoulder. "I'm just amazed that you haven't met any other halfas," she explained. "I'm from a group with a lot of ice cores, and we aren't far from there."

Danny paused to internalise that information. "But… Frostbite was really surprised to meet a halfa? He said I'm unique?" He tried to squint at his mother but the light was too bright, so he contented himself with pressing his head back a bit so that her supporting hand lay flush against his skin. She was still wearing her gloves, but the energy that passed through the connection was stronger with the increased contact, and he tried to express what words seemed to be failing to do. Danny felt like he was drowning, and grappled with the realisation that he'd been lied to for so long, especially by people he trusted.

"He might have thought that you were created artificially," she suggested, and enveloped him with reassurance. His doubts were still there, but they dulled into perspective as Maddie continued to comfort him with slow, steady waves of emotion. "You weren't connected to a clan, and depending on how you first met him, he might have thought that you were made into a halfa without being born as one. Remember, someone your age should already have a mature core."

Danny mumbled an agreeable sound, and frowned as he flexed his fingers. His hands and feet had started to go fuzzy, like when he slept the wrong way and woke up with pins and needles. It was discomfiting but probably normal, so he distracted himself from the sensation by thinking about what his mother had just said. "It makes sense," he admitted. "I pretty much fell into the Far Frozen by chance when my core almost froze me. Frostbite helped me to learn the basics of ice powers. I had pretty bad aim, but they let me stay to learn."

"That was nice of them," she said. "They don't usually train halfas, since we tend to have regular competitions. There's a bit of a friendly rivalry there."

"Oh!" Jack interrupted, and Danny felt a pang of guilt at excluding him from the conversation. "You told me about those ice tournaments with the yetis! Imagine the kind of elemental combat data we could gather from watching one of those!"

"Maybe we can do a mini one for you when I feel better," Danny suggested. His father hadn't seemed put-out by being ignored, but he still didn't want to risk to possibility. "I'd like to see what Mum can do."

Jack whooped, his exuberance bursting in the air like popcorn. Danny felt lifted by the unrestrained positive emotion, and it soothed his unsteady mind.

"That would be a good idea," Maddie agreed.

"I need to make some cryokinetic sensors!" Jack exclaimed. "Do you two need me to do anything or can I go draw up some plans?"

"I think we're fine," Maddie said, and Danny snorted at her amusement. He flinched as the motion caused his pain to throb again, and realised with dismay that the tingling had spread all the way up his arms and legs. It wasn't the nice, laughable fuzziness of sitting with a leg under you for a minute too long — this was the harsher type, with a painful edge that felt like an unrelenting cramp.

His mother's concern nudged him and Danny answered with unease, "My arms and legs have gone all crampy and tingly. It sort of hurts, and it's spreading."

Jack's anxiety joined theirs, and Danny felt like he was being smothered by the sudden stress. "Move your fingers, Dann-o."

Danny tried to wriggle his fingers, but they felt numb and swollen, and he wasn't sure if there was any response. "Are they moving?"

"A bit," Jack said, and Danny clamped his mouth shut and took a slow breath through his nose. He was suddenly far too tense, and needed something to bring him back down. A glass of green slime usually did the trick, but he didn't feel like any more ectoplasm. A part of his brain suggested that he was already soaking enough through his skin anyway, so lack of ectoplasm wasn't the problem here, but as the tingling spread he felt increasingly unstable.

"Is there such a thing as absorbing too much ectoplasm?" he hissed through clenched teeth.

"You haven't healed enough for anything like that to happen," Maddie said. "Hang on." A second later her bare hand clasped his shoulder, and Danny groped with numb fingers until he managed to grab her wrist. His awareness of her emotions sharpened, and he tried to help her share what he was experiencing. The tingling pain continued to spread, and Danny shuddered as it filled the rest of his body and began to sink into his core.

Maddie pulled away and Danny whined at the sensation — without preparation or mutual movement it felt like ripping a bandaid off his soul. "Sorry," she murmured, and he responded with a reproachful jab.

"What's wrong?" Jack asked.

"I don't know," Maddie confessed. "Injuries to immature cores are rare, and I didn't really study them beyond basic first aid."

"Well what _do_ you know?" Danny rasped. His insides buzzed with static, and any attempt at opening his eyes made his head spin.

"This is a bit delayed from the time of injury, so your core's probably just trying to restore equilibrium."

"Huh?"

"It's like when your computer shuts down and then when you turn it back on it starts up all its programs again," she clarified. "Your body does the same thing whenever your powers have been suppressed."

"This doesn't feel like that," Danny whined, trying to flex his limbs in the hope that it would dispel some of his discomfort. "I mean, it did before, when the bath was nice, but now I feel like ants are crawling inside me." He knew what she was trying to say, but this wasn't the rush of returning power — it was too painful for that.

"Let's get him out," Jack suggested.

Maddie murmured in agreement and Danny winced as hands hooked under his armpits and behind his knees. He gasped at the accompanying rush of pain as he was pulled from the ectoplasm, but when he tried to look around the world tilted alarmingly and his stomach tightened with sudden nausea. The lights burned like staring at the sun, and so he shut his eyes again and struggled to stay calm as his parents moved him onto a hard, flat surface a few paces away. It was probably the bench, but he wasn't about to try looking.

"Do you think it hurts so much because something's wrong?" he wheezed. Someone lifted his head and tucked something soft under it. Distress buzzed through the air like the wasps in his veins, and Danny hoped that they'd be honest with him.

"Probably," Jack admitted from somewhere near his feet. "Mads?"

"We need a proper examination," she answered. "It doesn't look good though. I thought I saw something before but the rain made it hard to tell. When he didn't have a reaction to the bath I figured I was wrong. Danny, sweetie, do you feel like any parts are missing?"

It was difficult to focus. The bench felt slippery against his ectoplasm-covered back, and Danny wondered how close he was to sliding off. A core exam was the last thing he wanted right now, but it was becoming harder to breathe again. The image of the spikes pulling from his body floated through his thoughts…

The epicenter of the pain burned at the base of his ribs, and things suddenly made a sickening amount of sense.

"They took a piece," he choked. He felt his mother grow still, and dimly sensed her grasping his unresponsive fingers. He tried to express his horrible realisation but the buzzing blocked his ability to read emotion, and all he felt was static in return. "The spike… near the bottom of my chest… there was a bit of _core_ on it…"

"Are you sure?" Jack asked.

Danny didn't bother answering. He'd felt it when it happened, but with everything else going on he hadn't realised how bad the damage was. That terrible sense of wrongness crept back, and he braced himself as he felt the cool probe of intangible hands slipping into his body. It unsettled him that she hadn't even given him time to change forms, but then she reached the vicinity of his core and everything else fell away.

Pain exploded through every nerve. His muscles melted, his blood felt like _acid,_ and Danny only realised that he was screaming when his body slammed into the floor and he had to stop to gasp for air. The agony ebbed like a wave, but he already felt more swelling inside him, spreading through his body and reaching tongues of fire down his arms and legs. He squinted his eyes open and tried to get his hands under him, attempting to move from where he had fallen on his stomach, but he forgot to breathe when he saw the skin on his arms and the backs of his hands.

"Mum?" he whispered.

He couldn't hear anything over the rapid beating of his heart and core. Two sets of knees slammed into the concrete in his line of sight and his parents grabbed his arms and shoulders. He dimly felt them try to move him but he was locked in place, tense and trembling as he stared in horror at his hands. It was like a terrible _Dead Teacher_ movie — large swathes of skin split and curled back as he watched helplessly. Blood and ectoplasm welled to the surface and dripped onto the floor. The same thing happened along the backs of his arms, and Danny shrieked as he felt like knives flayed apart his shoulders and back. The splits widened, entire sections of his skin sloughing off in mere seconds, and Danny screamed for his mother as his body cramped and something black glinted beneath the blood and ectoplasm.

The cramping grew worse and he retched, curling in on himself with the movement. Danny couldn't think about anything other than the pain, it hurt _so much,_ and flaying heat dragged across his back and licked down his spine. He wondered why he wasn't dead yet.

To make everything so much worse, because the universe literally couldn't seem to give him a break, his diaphragm clenched and white light burst into existence at his waist. The familiar halos swept over him and wrapped waterproof HAZMAT around his bleeding arms. His perfect white gloves were immediately streaked with the fluid from the floor, and he curled tighter, screwing his eyes shut and begging for it to stop. He cried whenever he could breathe, but it was difficult to get enough air and he felt like he was being carved apart…

Something slammed into him with a sickeningly familiar thud, and Danny screamed again as his core shut down. The connection was suddenly gone and the acid trickled away. The pain dulled from bone-melting agony to the searing throb of fresh wounds, and he dimly realised that he'd been shot. His core had been forcibly disabled to stop whatever was happening to him, but thoughts beyond that were too fuzzy, and he felt like he was sinking into darkness.

"Breathe," someone told him, but their voice was far away.

He wanted to answer, to say that he was trying, but it was just too hard.

"C'mon, Danny, keep breathing!"

He just…

needed…

to...

sleep

.

.

.


	11. Aftermath

Valerie was cleaning her armour when her father walked through the front door. She ignored his frown, and shifted her disassembled hoverboard to make a space for him to put the bag of groceries on the table. Her hands stung and she flexed her bandaged fingers. The resulting burn felt good, and gave her something simple to focus on.

"Are you okay?" He must have noticed her wince when she wiggled her fingers.

She shrugged and resumed cleaning, working a cloth against a groove in her boot. The fabric grew dark with Danny's dried blood. "I'm better now," she admitted.

"It's pretty wild out there." He dug through the bag and produced a packet of Aspirin. "Make sure you keep to the dosage."

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Thanks. Did they bother you?"

"I drove right past them."

His smile was small but at least it was there. Valerie sighed and dipped the corner of her cloth into a bowl of soapy water. "I'm sorry," she said. More blood and ectoplasm sponged out from the treads of her boot.

They were skidding around the topic, and she wished that she could do that mind reading thing that Danny could. It would make it easier to know what he was really thinking as he picked up her helmet and tilted it so that her visor reflected the light.

"I still don't approve of your hunting, but I'm proud of what you did yesterday."

"Oh." She scrubbed at a stubborn spot of ectoplasm that had congealed in the seam between her boot and the sole. "Then why did you ground me?"

His sigh was heavier than she expected, and Valerie paused to look at him properly. He seemed tired, more than he usually did after the graveyard shift, and she felt a glimmer of guilt.

"We didn't have time to talk before I went to work, and I didn't want you going out again. You did a good thing to help your friend, but what if _you_ were shot instead?" His voice cracked, and Valerie dropped her gaze back to her task so that she didn't have to see the tears building in his eyes. "What if the Guys in White took you away and I never saw you again?"

"That wouldn't have happened."

"It almost happened to Danny!"

She scrubbed harder against the sole of her boot, even though it was now clean. "My suit protects me." She didn't know what else to say. There was no way for her to explain that she hadn't been in any danger without revealing at least some of Danny's secret, and as bitter as her morning had been, she didn't have it in her to do that to him.

"It's still dangerous."

She placed the boot with the other clean pieces and grabbed a section of her hoverboard. Blood and ectoplasm was crusted in every seam and groove. "I know," she admitted, dipping the cloth again and beginning to work the grime out of her equipment. The stinging intensified as cold water seeped through her bandages. "I'm sorry for making you worry. I was actually thinking that I should work together with some of the other hunters if I'm out at night."

The doorbell rang but they both ignored it, and he dropped into a chair with a groan. "Why do you do it?"

She shrugged. "I feel… _right_ when I'm on my board. Like I was always meant to be a ghost hunter. I'm not hunting Phantom anymore though." Her fingers were wet and sore and wouldn't bend fully, and she knew she'd have to change the wrappings in a minute.

When she didn't elaborate, her father placed the helmet back onto the table with a quiet huff. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

She paused in her work again to frown at him. Damon had always seemed to sympathise with Phantom. It had frustrated her in the past, and there had been many tense conversations about morality and death in their household. It put a strain on their relationship that Valerie was glad to do away with. "I thought you'd be happy."

"I am," he said, and grabbed one of her hands, continuing to speak as he began to unwind the dirty bandage. "I'm just surprised that you changed your mind, since you're so stubborn."

It was a simple statement, flat and without anger. Valerie dropped the cloth and turned toward him so that he could reach her better. "He's actually just trying to help," she said. The gauze pulled from her damaged skin and she hissed at the sight of her injuries.

Damon whistled and began to unwrap her other hand. "I'm glad you see it like that. These burns don't look good, though."

She nodded. "I'm thinking of working with him, actually. Once everything blows over a bit."

"Hmm," he murmured. "Speaking of work, I thought you started at ten. It's eleven thirty now."

"Oh." Her stomach twisted and Valerie swallowed past her tightening throat. The day had been one disaster after another, but so long as she didn't acknowledge it, then she could fool herself into thinking that everything was fine. It was still difficult to say it out loud though. "I got fired." The second bandage slid free and she stared at her burned fingers and palms. They were red and swollen, and more blisters had bubbled into existence beneath the bandages overnight.

" _What?_ " Her father gripped her wrist tightly, and Valerie stared at her damaged skin, unwilling to meet his eyes. A couple of the blisters had burst and wept clear fluid, the skin beneath them raw and stinging at the exposure to the air.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. Her eyes burned and she sniffed, her vision blurring as tears began to drip down her cheeks. "My boss saw the livestream," she explained. "Phantom eats at the Nasty Burger late at night sometimes, and it's helped bring in more customers, so yeah…They don't really want to have the Red Huntress on their staff team."

Her father's arms wrapped around her shoulders and Valerie sobbed as she leaned into the rare hug. She didn't want to cry, she had to be stronger than this, bit it felt so nice to have someone hold her for once. "I'm so sorry," she hiccupped. "I'll find another job, or you c-can't pay the bills."

"It's alright," he murmured, rubbing a firm hand across her back. It made her feel stable, and she clung to him as the world tilted around her.

The doorbell rang again and Valerie pressed her tears into her father's shirt. "What if you get fired, too?"

He continued rubbing in steady circles, and her initial rush of tears began to slow. "Jeon likes ghost hunters," he told her. "That box ghost keeps messing up his warehouses no matter how many security guards he hires, so I don't think he'll fire me because you're Red."

The ache in her heart eased a fraction. "I still need another job though," she mumbled.

"You do enough," he said. "I think if I can design some ghost tech for our security guards, I'll get a raise."

"Why doesn't your boss just buy some?" Valerie pulled away from the hug and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Fenton tech's pretty good."

"They have a reputation for explosions," he reminded her, eyes crinkling with a smile. "Jeon doesn't trust their inventions, and all other tech on the market's too expensive right now."

"I can help," she offered. "If I'm not working, then I can invent some things. I built a containment unit recently, and it wouldn't be too hard to make more."

Damon sighed. "Maybe," he said. "We'll see what happens. We still need to have a serious talk about your ghost hunting, but first..." He grabbed her arms again, careful not to touch the burns. "I think we need to go to the hospital."

She shook her head and pulled back out of his grasp. "No way! We can't afford that!"

"Valerie —"

"It's not that bad!" she insisted. Once glance at her hands refuted that statement, but Valerie wasn't ready to back down.

Her father took a sharp breath through his nose, and his lips pressed together in a thin line. "We're not discussing this," he said. His voice was tight and gave no space for argument. "Your blisters are huge."

Valerie crossed her arms and winced at the resulting sting. "I'm fine."

"You have chemical burns covering your entire hands. Why didn't you tell me it was this bad last night?"

"It wasn't this bad, the blisters came while I was asleep!"

He shook his head and stood up. "Don't argue with me about this."

His tone made her pause, and Valerie fought down her sudden rush of guilt. "Okay," she whispered. "Let me get changed."

He nodded and began to pull the groceries out of the bag. "We'll go as soon as you're ready."

She walked through to her bedroom, making sure that the curtains were closed before rummaging in her drawers for a fresh shirt and jeans. Stripping off her pyjamas was slow, and her hands twitched and burned with every movement, but Valerie bit down on her lip and worked her way through the pain.

She wondered how Danny was doing. She'd tried to call him when she woke up, but his phone was off. She slowly drew her arm back through the damp sleeve of her jumper, and the wool brushed against her blisters. She debated trying to call him again but her phone was off now too, and Valerie didn't want to turn it back on and deal with the bombardment of calls and social media notifications.

It was all thanks to that stupid livestream. She'd been too careless in the stress of the moment, and streamed from Valerie Grey's Facebook account instead of the one for the Red Huntress. That alone wouldn't have been enough to reveal the truth, but Valerie had talked about her suit's sensors, and then Maddie had sealed the deal when she'd called her 'Red'.

The jumper slipped over her head and Valerie dropped it on the floor and started the arduous task of unbuttoning her pyjama top. She gritted her teeth and tried to jimmy the buttons through their holes with minimal movement of her hands.

It hadn't been Maddie's fault, although it would have been easy to blame her for the name drop. Valerie usually shifted the blame to someone else whenever things went wrong, but now she knew that pinning her problems on Maddie was the wrong thing to do. Valerie had been the one to mix up her accounts, _she_ had mentioned her own suit, and _she_ had made the stupid mistake of touching concentrated ectoplasm with her bare skin. This was all her fault.

The doorbell rang yet again, and Valerie growled as the last button finally slipped out of its hole. She shucked her shirt and kicked off her pants before groaning as she was faced with the prospect of putting on her bra. She almost didn't bother — she was going to the hospital anyway, it's not like they'd care — but the clamour of voices out in the street pushed her to put it on. The _last_ thing she needed right now was media photos taken out of context.

Her fingers felt like overcooked hotdogs ready to split through their skins, and she could barely bend them enough to slide the hooks into their clasps. Valerie moved like an old woman, slowly sliding the straps up her arms and settling them on her shoulders.

She felt like when she was ten and had accidentally stuck her hands in an ants' nest while hunting for Easter eggs. Her fingers had swollen and hurt so much that she'd been unable to sleep, and her father had sat up with her late into the night with ice packs and numbing cream. Valerie could only hope that her burns would heal as quickly as those bites, but the realist in her knew that that wasn't possible. She pulled the fresh shirt over her head and wondered if she'd even be able to write for the next few weeks.

The zipper and button on her jeans looked far more torturous after the ordeal with her bra, and Valerie forewent them in favour of some leggings. They were still painful to pull on and she vowed to never take properly functioning hands for granted again. She sat on the edge of her bed, staring at her maimed skin as she thought about how to get out of the hospital visit. There was just no way that they could get the money to pay for it… She'd _have_ to use her college savings, and then find another job and work for whatever part of the fee that her stashed money wouldn't cover…

She sighed and trudged back through to the kitchen. Her father looked up at her entry, and the hard lines around his eyes blurred into softness. "Facebook took down the video."

"Fair enough," she responded. "It _was_ pretty bloody, so I'm surprised it took that long."

"People are protesting about the Guys in White," he told her. "They're pulling down that gun. The mayor's trying to keep the peace but there's not a lot he can do." He held his phone out to her and Valerie frowned at the video of protestors in the town square. They were tearing the weapon apart with everything from wrenches to chainsaws, and standing in stark focus with a blowtorch in her grasp was none other than Sam Manson. She was braced in her stance, fire billowing from her weapon and keeping the police at bay while the people behind her worked on dismantling the gun.

"I bet she's not coming to school on Monday," Valerie mused, and passed the phone back.

He chuckled at that. "She'll be the next ghost you have to hunt by the time her parents are finished."

Valerie snorted and headed for the door. Sam's flames flickered in her mind's eye and she couldn't ignore the thought that they'd set something in motion. She slipped on her shoes and followed her father down to the parking lot beneath their apartment building, trying not to overthink things too much. The cool underground air was refreshing and settled her anxious thoughts. Since waking up it had felt like she'd missed a step on a staircase and just kept falling, her heart heaving itself into her throat as her carefully-balanced world tore apart. Things weren't any better, but as Damon opened the car door for her, she was more grateful than she could express to have a parent there who still cared for her and would help her through this mess. Being perceived as an adult last night while Danny's blood poured onto the ground had been more terrible than she had imagined, and a small part of her was glad that at least now that people knew her identity, she wouldn't have to deal with things alone if she didn't want to.

The garage door rolled up on its runners, and sunlight burst through the widening gap. Damon locked the car before driving up the ramp, and Valerie shrank back in her seat, ducking her head down and wishing that she could turn invisible. People crowded around the car, cameras flashing as large black lenses stared at her like she was a beetle beneath a microscope.

She was suddenly very glad that she'd bothered to put on her bra.

The world was a mess of shouts and camera flashes. It was overwhelming, but as they inched carefully through the reporters and finally drove onto the open street, it became easier to breathe. They pulled into the flow of traffic around the corner and Valerie comforted herself with the thought that at least she wasn't about to be arrested on live television.

She wasn't sure that Sam would be so lucky.


	12. Imbricate

He rose from sleep gently, like wafting steam that curled and dissipated in lazy swirls. The first thing Danny became aware of was a comfortable warmth, and he pulled the blankets tighter and rolled over.

Pain streaked through his body and he yelped, curling in on himself and squinting in the golden sunlight that poured through his window. He took a breath that pressed against his ribs with the deep ache of healing wounds.

Right. He'd had holes punched through him.

The echo of panic and screaming niggled at him, and he rubbed eyes that were sticky with sleep. The small movement sent pangs down his arm and across his shoulders, and his body felt stiff and achy. It was as if he had the flu, or felt like the time Walker strung him up by his ankles and used him as a punching bag. Everything throbbed dully and he really didn't want to be awake right now. Snippets of last night swam into focus, nightmarish flashes of peeling skin and crippling agony. At least now it didn't feel like his bones were melting anymore and he yawned, still half asleep and not too fussed by the lack of urgency, and lazily held up a hand to see the damage.

Something was wrong, but he couldn't make sense of it. Instead of scar-littered skin, patches of something white glittered in the sunlight. They ran over the back of his hand and past his wrist, connecting in a sheet that continued up his arm as far as he could see. They shone with an iridescent green sheen when the light caught them, and he stared uncomprehendingly at this strange thing on his skin.

He lifted his other hand as well, and it had the same bizarre covering. He didn't know what this had to do with the horror from last night, but it was too unusual to not be important. After another moment of tilting his hands in the light, Danny ran a finger across one of the white patches. It felt smooth, like the time he'd held a snake at the wildlife sanctuary…

Danny stopped, and felt the first flicker of panic. Scales. His arms were covered in glittering white _scales._

He sat up, biting back a shriek as every muscle protested the movement. Hair fell into his eyes and he raked a hand through his bangs, confirming that they were white too. He was still in ghost form for some reason, but couldn't remember anything from last night beyond pain and blood. Danny took a deep breath and looked at his hands again, trying to ignore the way that they trembled. He noticed that he wasn't glowing like he'd expect to be as Phantom, and someone had dressed him in pyjamas.

He reached for his core, but it was like it wasn't even there. Danny clenched his fingers and took another deep, slow breath, trying to stave off the rising panic attack that wound around his gut and fluttered in his lungs. He was powerless, in ghost form, and his arms were covered in scales. Right.

His chest and stomach still ached where he'd been shot, and Danny raised his shirt to check his injuries. Moving felt weird, and the shirt wouldn't lift far up his back before catching in place, but Danny got enough of a look at the healing holes on his abdomen. They were covered by patches of gauze taped in place, but he knew from experience that the wounds would be plugged with green scabs that branched outward with glowing tendrils that burrowed into his veins. A few of the tendrils webbed out from beneath the edges of the dressings and Danny prodded at one experimentally. It stung, and he figured that he still had a while to go before he'd be moving around properly again. Just another bunch of scars to add to his collection… which were all still visible, with his core out of action.

It was a small relief that there didn't appear to be many scales on his stomach, just a few small patches closer to the sides of his body, but he couldn't be sure about the rest of him. Danny dropped the shirt and looked at his arms and hands again. The scales were mostly smooth, and only larger scars were still visible as ridges and bumps beneath the glittering sheet. In contrast, the normal sections of his skin along the palms of his hands and the underside of his arms were still as scarred as they'd always been.

Danny scratched at the hollow beneath his ear, frowning as his nails caught against the edges of more scales. How far did these things go? He ran his fingers down his neck, feeling how his skin at the front gave way to patches of scales that wound around the back and disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt. His shoulders screamed as he lifted his arms, and his back felt heavy and weighed down, like he was wearing a schoolbag full of books. He was too stiff to reach behind him and figure out what was going on, so Danny shoved back the blankets, determined to head to the bathroom and have a proper look in the mirror. His body ached enough already that he could do _without_ a panic attack right now, so he paused for a moment and closed his eyes. He clenched his fists in the hem of his shirt and held each breath for five seconds, breathing in and out in a slow, circular rhythm.

He opened his eyes once he felt calmer and untwisted his fingers from his shirt. It hurt to move, and the first thing he noticed was that his feet had patches of white too. His pants covered down to his ankles but if the scales were on his feet then they were probably on his legs as well. He slowly drew them over the edge of the bed, feeling stiff and sore like when Sam had convinced him to do yoga with her and he'd gotten stuck in one of those twisty pretzel positions. It had taken a few days to recover from that ordeal, and he hoped that this would blow over as well, but then something else moved beside him that caught his eye. Something long and white, that glittered in the sun. Danny cried out and tried to pull away from whatever was in his bed, swatting at it when he couldn't create an ectoblast. It was a… a snake! There was a giant white snake in his bed with him, as thick as his wrist and with most of its length still hidden beneath the blankets! If this was a ghost snake and it had bitten him, that might explain the scales...

The snake twitched, and Danny's stomach twisted as he realised that he could feel it stinging where he'd whacked it. His hands shook as he reached out and touched the scales, his brain confirming that whatever it was, this _thing_ was a part of him. It wasn't a snake at all, and he ran his hand up its length, following it all the way back to the base of his spine.

The rest of it slid out from beneath the blankets and he came to the absurd realisation that he could _definitely_ feel it, and it tapered along its length to a thin spiked tip that flicked in the light. He prodded at the seamless extension of his spine that poked through a hole in his pyjama pants. Danny couldn't make sense of what he was seeing, and he fought to hold down his stress. This just didn't make any sense! It was a tail. He had a real, feeling, moving _tail._

He could feel the panic rising inside him and Danny hunched over and pressed his hands against his eyes. This was all just some wild dream. First his mother was a halfa, then he'd been shot out of the sky and practically into Valerie's arms, and now he'd grown scales and a _tail_.

"Leave me alone, Nocturne," he groaned. That was the only thing that made sense, and after a moment of silence, Danny sat up straight again. "Hey, do you hear me?" he snapped. "Get out of my head!"

The thought that his mother wasn't actually a halfa was a knife that twisted his insides, but Danny knew that this was just too crazy to be real. Now that he knew that this was a dream, he'd be able to get out of it. Lucid dreaming. Wake himself up, or… something.

Damn. Sam had _told_ him to try to learn how to control his dreams after Nocturne attacked them, but he'd brushed it off, into the pile of skills to acquire at a later date. He _had_ seen a movie about dreaming though. He couldn't remember the title right now but it had something to do with dreams within dreams, and a spinning top that broke reality if they were in the dream world.

That was it. If he really _was_ dreaming, then reality would be broken.

He looked around his room and frowned when nothing seemed out of place. His curtains were open, beams of light pouring through the glass. It would have to be the afternoon for the sun to be like that. If that was the case, then the clocks should match. He reached for his phone on the bedside table… and it wasn't there.

Even though this was probably a dream, he felt an immediate buzz of anxiety. He was used to having his phone on him all the time, so the lack of its presence was unsettling. He wondered when he'd last had it, but if this was all a dream, then he didn't know. Did it even matter in this world?

Danny fought down his anxiety and grabbed his alarm clock, twisting it so that he could see the face, and he scowled. At almost three in the afternoon, the time matched the sunlight, and he tilted his head back to look at his ceiling. When he normally dreamed, little details became more smooth and surreal, so there should be something in his room that would betray the fantasy..

Plastic glow-in-the-dark stars were still arranged in perfect constellations on the old paintwork, and models of spaceships and planets hung from the ceiling on strands of dental floss. They were exactly how they always were, and the sagging cardboard and faded paint on older models was far too imperfect to be a dream.

Aside from that, his pain simply felt too real. Danny squeezed the tip of his tongue between his front teeth, and the pain was exactly how it should be. Usually when he dreamed, he felt nothing when he bit his tongue.

He still wasn't convinced though. Reality could still be broken… That was it! Right now his core was bound, so if he really was awake, then he wouldn't be able to use his powers. He held up his hands and pressed the tip of a finger against the palm of the other hand. This was a bit more of an uncertain test since he could usually phase through things, but with his powers bound, he shouldn't be able to pass the finger through his hand. It was the final test of the laws of physics, and when his finger stayed solid, Danny dropped his hands with a sigh.

So he wasn't dreaming then. Probably.

Slowly, he levered himself to his feet. The tail was long, the last foot or so brushing against the floor. His entire body ached and he almost turned around and went back to bed, but weight dragged against his shoulders, and he was sure that something was trailing from his back, and he just needed to _see_. Danny leaned against the wall, opening the door a sliver and listening for movement. Voices crept up from downstairs, too muffled for him to make out what they were saying, and he eased his door the rest of the way open and crept down the hallway. He wanted to have a look on his own before dealing with his parents, though he probably wouldn't have long before his mother sensed his emotions. If he had a panic attack she'd be upstairs in an instant.

He needed to stay calm.

Danny locked the bathroom door behind him, not that it had ever made a difference with his father's trigger-happy attitude, and nudged the bathmat over with his foot so that he could stand on that instead of the cold tiles. It didn't usually bother him but with his core out of order, he felt the cold easier, and it gave him a moment to steel his nerves before he had to look at his reflection.

He leaned against the sink and stared at the weary ghost in the mirror. His scars were stark in the harsh light, and Danny's gaze slid over them before settling on pale scaly patches at his temples and where his jawline met his ears. It was the same as on his hands, and the scales were smooth when he brushed a finger over them.

Something was visible beyond his shoulders, strange white shapes that make his heart flutter. Danny turned sideways, and stared.

His heart caught, and his breathing filled his ears.

Huge, ungainly things were attached to his back, and Danny's shoulders screamed as he twisted to touch one of them. He could feel his fingers brush over scaly webbing, and then the things _moved_ , and his entire back burned.

He _knew_ what they were. He'd had seen enough pictures, and Tucker was really into Game of Thrones and had posters around his room. Danny had fought Dora and Aragorn as well, and Sam had worn that cursed amulet back when he was still new to the whole ghost hunting thing, but he couldn't comprehend how he'd grown a set himself. His core was bound, his body different from what it was supposed to be, and he felt like he was going to throw up.

This was _wrong,_ and Danny clutched the sink and tried not to collapse as the world spun. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to focus on breathing, tried to block out what he'd just seen and pretend that this wasn't happening.

He knew this wasn't a dream, and panic roared through his ears.

Someone knocked on the door, and Danny gulped in his first decent breath in what felt like hours. "Just a minute," he wheezed.

"Danny?"

His mother's voice broke something inside him, and Danny withered and slid to the floor. His back screamed in protest as the wings and tail scraped against the cabinet, and he couldn't stop the sob that welled from his chest. "Mum," he managed, and dissolved into tears.

She phased through the door in an instant, and he clutched for her. He didn't know how she could make this better and he wanted to wrap himself in her reassuring emotions but he felt _nothing,_ and Danny latched his arms around her waist and heaved gasping sobs into her shoulder. He hated this. He wanted to stop, to stay in control and ask the questions that filled his thoughts, but he just felt so _scared!_

He was dull. Blind. He hated not being able to sense the emotions around him.

"You're okay," she soothed, and he leaned into her touch as she ran a hand through his hair. "Come on, deep breaths."

Danny realised that he was gasping in short, shallow bursts, and he forced himself to take a longer drag of air. His insides squeezed, and he remembered how Dash stole his erasers in woodwork class last week and pressed them in the vice until they exploded. He felt just like that, like another twist of disaster would be enough to destroy him.

Each breath eased that pressure a little, and he simply sat there and let her hold him as he tried to bring himself back down.

"That's it," she murmured, and he leaned against her and breathed in the comforting scent of her shampoo.

They stayed like that until he was ready to talk.

"What…" His voice rasped like he was a hundred years old, so Danny cleared his throat and tried again. "What's going on? I can't feel my core, and…"

She drew back and he frowned at the way she drooped. Was it sadness? Disappointment? Something else entirely? He wasn't used to relying only on body language to figure out what people were feeling. It made him uncertain. He grappled for his core like searching for his phone in the blankets of the bed, and, like a missing phone, it eluded him completely.

She must have sensed his attempts. "Patience." She laid her hand on his arm and he knew that she was trying to comfort him but the lack of emotional connection just made him feel _lost._

He had so much to deal with right now and he reminded himself to take it one step at a time. Jazz had always stressed that with him, and he could hear her reminder as clear as anything: _Break things up into smaller tasks. Deal with them one by one. Take all the time you need._

It helped to break things up. One step at a time. "My core," he said again, and felt like he was trying to claw himself out of his own grave. Slowly, gently, or he'd drown in stress and achieve nothing. "What's wrong with it?"

She ran her thumb over a patch of scales on his wrist, and he didn't want to admit that it actually felt sort of nice. "I shot you with a gun that disables cores. It lasts about twenty-four hours, but I needed to stop you from changing more."

He vaguely remembered something like that happening, and watched as her thumb continued to brush over the scales. Back, and forth, and back, and forth… It gave him the moment he needed to register the new information, and he felt calmer as he realised that he wasn't permanently bound. He missed his core, and the way it made him feel so much lighter and more _aware,_ but the reassurance that it would be back soon helped him to settle a bit more.

He kept watching her thumb. It was easier than trying to guess what the little motions in her face meant. So, first step over. His back throbbed, and he asked his next question. Slowly. Carefully.

He could do this.

"So what happened to me?"

She took his other hand too, holding them in front of him and turning them so that Danny was staring at the white patches. They caught the light, reflecting it back with a flash of green iridescence. "The Guys in White damaged your core." Her words were soft and slow, and he got the sickening sense that things had gone terribly wrong. "The holes will scar but shouldn't cause too many problems, but they took a piece when they pulled out one of the spikes."

There was a strange emptiness at her words. Even with his core bound it felt _wrong,_ and _gone,_ and Danny took a shuddering breath that swelled like it would burst his lungs. He couldn't _begin_ to express this damaged feeling with words, and so he tried his best to project it through their joined hands. Even if he was blind to the emotional conversation going on right now, _she_ could still feel him, and he could help her to understand what he was going through.

He was grateful that she continued when he didn't speak. "It'll grow back eventually. Mature cores do it in a few months, but immature cores don't have the ability."

Terror wound up his spine and he fought it down. "I have to wait until my core's mature to fix it?"

"Hey." He looked up, and her soft smile was more soothing than he'd expected. He knew she was trying to comfort him, and that if his powers were active he'd feel calm washing over him. Just the knowledge of what she was doing pulled him back down from the encroaching tide of stress. Her hair frizzed at the edges and he watched how the light made the red shine, trying to focus on the colour and letting it drown out everything else.

Her voice cut through his reverie. "Sweetie, it's alright. It'll grow back. You're not stuck like this forever."

"So _this,"_ he felt the tail swish and the wings shift, but he tried not to think too much about it for now, "this _transformation_ was because of my missing piece? I'll be stuck like this for _seven years?!_ "

Her brow creased and he tried to search for anything past the pity in her eyes. "You'll morph back to human just fine once the suppressant wears off." There was something else there, unspoken and hovering over them like a storm just waiting to unleash its deluge.

Danny gripped her hands and screwed his eyes shut. They burned, and he felt a few traitorous tears run down his face. "The… the scales?" he forced himself to say. He felt like a condemned prisoner confirming the time of their execution. "And… everything else?"

She squeezed back, reassuringly _there_. He felt anchored by how her fingers fitted around his palms. She wouldn't leave him to get lost in the panic again. "The piece they took is from the part of your core responsible for shapeshifting. A little higher and it would have been your ghost sense, a little lower and you would have lost your ability to morph. You were lucky."

He didn't feel lucky. Danny knew what she was trying to say, but he needed to hear it. "So I'm stuck like this?" He blinked away a lingering tear and risked looking at her face again.

For a moment the only sound was the slow drip of the leaky shower, and then Danny flinched as she hugged him again. "We'll figure this out," she promised.

He stared at the tiny white hexagonal tiles on the floor, trying to count them in an effort to keep calm, but then he realised how much they looked like the scales on his body. Danny shut his eyes and laid his head on her shoulder. She squeezed him tighter, an unspoken indication of her own stress, and Danny realised that he'd had more hugs over the past two days than he generally received in any given _month._ It was nice.

"Okay," he said, and his voice was weaker than he would have liked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Can I have some Advil, and maybe some Tylenol too? My back's killing me." He wriggled out of her arms and rolled his shoulders for emphasis. They smarted, and he felt the wings shift with the movement.

It was uncomfortable and he hated it.

She nodded, getting to her feet and offering him a hand up. "You had to grow new muscles for your wings and tail to attach and move, on top of everything else from last night, so you'll be sore until your core comes back online and heals you."

 _Your_ wings. It rubbed him the wrong way and he had to fight down an irrational feeling of irritation. He didn't want to think of them as his. Sure, they were attached to his body, but they were _additions_ that _didn't belong._ He knew he'd probably change that thinking eventually, since he'd gone through the same thing when he first activated his core, but for now he just couldn't bring himself to accept that they were a part of him.

He took her hand, wincing but otherwise not complaining as she tugged him off the floor. His shoulder screamed with the pressure but he bit down on his tongue and pushed through it. Her brows pinched together and Danny knew that she could sense his negative response but he ignored her and headed through the door. He wanted a better look at his body, _privately_ , where he could examine every single change and try to come to terms with it, but now wasn't the time. If his mother was right then he'd have seven years to deal with it anyway, so he tried to forget about it for now. Later, when everyone was in bed and the house was quiet, he'd be able to camp in front of the full-length mirror behind Jazz's bedroom door and give himself a _proper_ examination. For now, though, he had other things to take care of.

His stomach clenched with pangs of hunger. His legs were stiff and sore, and pain throbbed across his entire body as he shuffled down the hallway. Maddie matched her pace to his, and he gave up trying to walk normally.

Had the hallway _always_ been this long? He leaned against the wall for a moment, hating himself. He hadn't had to heal anything without his core for so long that he'd forgotten what it was like. It sucked more than he remembered. His mother offered her arm, but he pushed off the wall with a grunt and kept walking, hoping that she wouldn't think that his irritation was directed at her.

Voices drifted up the stairs and he paused at the top. "Who's here?"

Maddie brushed against his shoulder and he allowed her to take his hand and loop it through her arm. "Your Aunt Alicia."

"Oh." He was grateful for his mother's support. Everything was off-balance, and the stairs seemed like an impassable obstacle. "Why?"

"She grew up in the Ghost Zone with me," she reminded him. "I didn't learn a lot about cores beyond basic first aid, but Leash studied a course when we were teenagers. She came to help as soon as I called her."

Danny wasn't sure how to feel about that, and he clung to her arm and stayed where he was when she tried to steer him down the first step. He didn't really know his aunt that well, since she lived on her farm and only came around on alternating Christmases and Thanksgivings, and despite knowing that she'd grown up in the Ghost Zone he was still uncomfortable that she knew his secret. He didn't want to go down there in his ghost form, especially not looking like _this,_ and so he hesitated.

Maddie must have interpreted his anxiety as being directed at the staircase, because she wrapped her arm around his waist. The wings awkwardly flattened against his back and he realised that she had put her arm over instead of beneath them, which hurt more than he was willing to admit. Green light wound around their bodies, and he felt like a burst of wind pulled him in every direction at once.

He blinked, and they were standing at the foot of the stairs. Danny shakily backed away from her and leaned against the end of the banister. He'd forgotten about her ghost powers for a moment, so the teleportation had caught him off guard. He'd only managed to do it a couple of times himself, and never with that much accuracy. "You'll have to teach me that," he mumbled. "I always miss the mark."

She gave a little laugh, and he breathed deeply through his nose.

"Right." Before he could change his mind he pushed back off the banister and shuffled into the kitchen.

His aunt and father were sitting across from each other, and something sizzled on the stove. Jack had the laptop out again, with the glowing pressure cuff plugged back in and repeatedly inflating and deflating on its own. They were arguing about the malfunctioning invention with raised voices, but the tone was friendly enough. Alicia was the same as Danny remembered her — dressed in a plaid shirt beneath faded denim overalls, with her hair cut shorter than his own, and a loud voice that currently wasn't hesitating to tell Jack exactly why his creation was failing to work.

They both looked over at his entry, and Danny tried to seem unconcerned. He leaned against the doorframe and scrunched his nose. "Is something burning?"

Jack leaped up from his chair and rushed to the stove. "The pancakes!"

Danny snorted and allowed his mother to nudge him fully through the door. Alicia stood to greet him, and he noticed that the skin beneath her eyes sagged like wet laundry. She lived several hours away, and she'd probably been called to help at whatever ridiculous hour of the morning it had been when he passed out. He wondered if she got any sleep last night.

"Hey, Danny."

"Uh, hi." He stood stiffly as she wrapped him in a gentle hug. It was different from her usual spine-crunching embrace, and he didn't like that she was treating him as though he was made of glass. It didn't help that Danny usually shied away from physical contact in case people felt his scars or any other injuries beneath the illusions he typically wore, so he had to remind himself that she knew his secret so it was _okay._ He raised his arms and hugged back tentatively. "Thanks for coming to help."

She pulled away and placed her hands on his shoulders. They were heavier, more familiar in manner than that fragile embrace, and he felt a bit better.

She gave a tired smile that stretched deep crows feet from the corners of her eyes, like splintered branches in the skin. "Had a rough night, eh?"

He ached were her weight rested on his shoulders, but it felt to rude to shrug her off. "Yeah, I guess." He wasn't really sure what to say, so he settled for an awkward smile as he nudged his head in the direction of the table. "Can we sit down? I'm still pretty sore."

"Damn right you are." She pulled out a chair for him and Danny dropped into it, yelping in a mixture of surprise and pain when the tail caught beneath him. Alicia grabbed it with unexpectedly gentle hands and helped slide it through the gap between the back and the seat of the chair before carefully folding the wings in a way that he didn't quite have control over yet. He felt helpless, and being manhandled made his skin crawl, but he pushed his frustration back. He murmured his thanks to his aunt and accepted some tablets that his mother passed to him, dry-swallowing them and hoping that they'd work quickly.

It had been a while since they'd had four people together in the kitchen, and he felt a bit crowded. He wished Jazz were there, but abandoned that thought because he knew that if she _was_ present then he'd just be annoyed by her concerned mothering.

Alicia handed him a glass of something blue that shone like a glow stick. "Ectoplasm," she said when he frowned.

"Why's it blue?"

She sat down with a sigh. "It's got medicine in it. Just drink it."

He wanted to trust them, but Danny had been wary of everything for so _long,_ and he couldn't stop himself from asking. "What's it do?"

"You're missin' some of your core," she said, pushing the glass closer when he didn't pick it up. "This'll help stabilise you. Drink it every six hours for the next few days."

"The Guys in White _gave_ me stabiliser," he grumbled. "It didn't do any good."

"It did," Maddie interrupted from where she had gone to help at the stove. "You could have destabilised when they took that piece."

"Why give it to me then? Didn't they want to arrest me?"

"Yes, but they didn't want you or their _sample_ to melt."

Danny glared at a knot in the tabletop so that he didn't have to meet anyone's eyes. He hated the thought that last night had been deliberate, but knew that there was no other explanation. They'd waited to collect his ectosignature until they were scheduled to turn the gun on, despite collecting Vlad's and Maddie's earlier. The agent had also been so _calm_ when Danny had accidentally broken the PDA, and the gun _conveniently_ couldn't be turned off in time. All of that could still have been coincidence, but even if Danny ignored the malice that he'd felt directed at him last night, there was no denying that Skulker being kept in a glass jar that just _happened_ to shatter at the perfect moment was too deliberate. The entire thing was one big set-up, and if Valerie hadn't intervened, he didn't like to think where he'd be.

And now he was an absolute mess.

His aunt gave him a pointed look and Danny scowled at the glass in front of him. He didn't want to drink the blue ectoplasm, but he knew he was being irrational. He didn't have to be guarded around his family anymore…

It was just such a _change_ , and everything had gone wrong at once. It was hard for him to deal with all these developments after so many years of routine.

There were little things he could do though, and Danny recognised that his family was trying to help him feel at ease. He had to put in some effort as well. Meet them in the middle and all that.

The glass was cold to touch, and he drank the whole thing in one go. It tasted just the same as normal ectoplasm, and he immediately felt his anxiety begin to settle.

Alicia shook her head. "T'think they'd do this to a _kid,_ " she grumbled.

"I'm not a kid," he shot back, unthinkingly.

As her gaze grew dark he realised his mistake. "You're _seventeen,_ " she growled, "and your core's _immature._ I can't _believe_ you've been ghost huntin' _alone_ for _three years_ already! Look at all your scars!"

Danny turned his arms so that the skin on the undersides wasn't visible anymore. The scales on top were smoother, and helped to hide the majority of the scars there. He couldn't do much for the rest of him so he shrank back in his seat, folding his arms across his chest defensively. Alicia had always been pretty vocal about her opinions, but it was usually Jack in the firing line, not him.

"I can't believe you hid this!" she continued. "Were you really so scared of your father that you'd rather have ghosts carve you up like the Thanksgivin' turkey?"

Danny wanted to say that he'd been scared of _both_ of his parents, and that his mother was actually the more intimidating hunter, but it didn't feel appropriate. Still, he couldn't let her blame anyone but himself. "I tried to hide it," he reasoned. "I could have told them when it happened, but I guess I didn't want to get in trouble, or make them feel guilty. I went in the portal when I wasn't supposed to, so it's not their fault."

The steel in her eyes softened, and she reached over and took his hand. "Is that what caused this?" she asked, unfolding his arms and running her fingers over the feathery green lichtenberg scar that tendrilled down his skin.

He ducked his head. He hated people seeing that. For so long it had been a reminder of his death, and was a muted green no matter what form he wore. A visual reminder that he wasn't quite human. Learning yesterday that he hadn't actually died helped to soften the sadness he felt when he saw the scar, but he still hadn't had time to process everything yet. "Yeah," he mumbled when she didn't let go of his hand. He knew that she must have seen it while he was asleep. It covered most of his body, since the electric ectoplasm had struck in an overpowering wave, but fanned out from the initial point of entry near his diaphragm. It was right where the rings appeared for his ghostly transformation, and directly where the centre of his core rested. He still counted himself lucky that his flesh hadn't melted off his bones, and that the scars weren't too much of a deformity. He usually hid them with his illusion thing anyway. It wasn't shapeshifting, but more of an alteration of how others perceived him, so he hoped he'd still be able to do it when his core started working again.

When he didn't say anything else she released him with a huff. "Well I guess that's one way to activate your core."

Danny shrugged, flexing his fingers and watching as the scales shimmered in the light. "Didn't mean to," he mumbled.

"Do you regret it?"

He jerked his gaze up at her question. He didn't know what her expression meant. Was she curious? Exasperated? Concerned? He missed his core. "No."

She nodded, and he wondered why she'd chosen the leave the Ghost Zone. Was the lack of powers too much for her to bear in a society full of halfas? Before he could piece together a question that wasn't too invasive, his father began to pass out empty plates and cutlery. Danny took his with quiet thanks and tried to shift so that he was more comfortable. The wings were pressed against the back of the chair, and they ached, sort of like putting pressure on a bruise. Moving didn't really help much, and when Maddie shot him a worried glance he hunched his shoulders and tried not to feel too miserable. He knew that hiding his discomfort was useless when she could sense it in the air, but he was so used to burying distress that it was a habit at this point.

A plate full of pancakes joined the toppings that Jack had placed in the middle of the table and everyone took their seats. Danny tried to force a smile onto his face. This was his favourite breakfast, with maple syrup and ice cream, but they only had it on special occasions. He may not be able to fool his mother, but he needed to make the others feel like their efforts were helping him.

The pancakes _did_ look amazing, and the smell set Danny's stomach growling. He reached for the tongs and winced as his shoulders and back pulled. His chest also hurt a bit, and he really wished that his core was active so it could help deal with this pain. Gritting his teeth, he served himself a small stack, and was relieved to put down his plate. Whatever these new muscles were in his shoulders and upper body, they _hurt._

When the ice cream was passed his way he dug in the spoon, and pain arced through his shoulder and arm. He tried again, but couldn't apply enough pressure to twist out a scoop before the burning tension became too strong. He dropped his hands and fought back frustrated tears. It really was all too much. His core was hurt deliberately, his body had changed against his will, and now he was in so much pain that he couldn't even get himself some ice cream!

Maddie wordlessly left her seat across the table and moved to his side, picking up the ice cream and scooping until he sent a flicker of emotion that told her to stop. Jack and Alicia had been oblivious to his initial struggle, but now they watched the two halfas with pity in their eyes, and Danny wanted to just grab his plate and eat in the solitude of his bedroom. He felt so helpless.

His mother poured a generous helping of maple syrup on top of his pancakes and ice cream and dusted the stack with a handful of blueberries before returning to her spot. Danny sent her a wave of gratitude and she smiled in a way that he thought was encouraging. He wanted to communicate with her properly but it was so _difficult_ when he couldn't sense anything!

He picked up his knife and fork and contemplated the food on his plate. Sweet gold syrup dripped slowly from the edges of buttery pancakes, and the ice cream on the top sat in a slowly growing pool as it began to melt. He cut himself a slice, and his shoulders twinged at the action. It wasn't unbearable, but it _was_ uncomfortable. Maddie paused with a look of concern on her face. He really didn't want her to have to come and cut his food as well, so Danny stuck the first forkful in his mouth and immediately began to cut another piece as he chewed.

The food was heavenly. Danny hunched over his plate and tried to send the clear impression that he was more interested in eating than talking right now, and when his father tried to start a conversation, Maddie steered it away so that he'd be left alone. He was content to just sit there and eat while they chatted around him about how Jazz was doing at university.

"So, has she got a boyfriend yet?" Alicia wondered. "You two hooked up pretty quickly after goin' to uni together."

Jack waved his fork in the air. "I think not!" he exclaimed. "My Jazzy-pants would _never_ date someone who isn't a Jack-Fenton-approved ghost hunter!"

Danny snorted. "Oh yeah, because that Johnny guy was _totally_ a ghost hunter," he drawled.

"He could have been, if Jazz'd let me train him," Jack grumbled. "Not that I liked him much anyway."

Alicia sent him a quizzical look and Danny mouthed the word "ghost" with an exaggerated eye-roll.

"Speaking of Jazz," Maddie interrupted, "she wants you to call her back, Danny. She saw the news and we had to convince her not to jump straight on a plane."

"I was on the news that far away?"

She speared a blueberry with her fork. "An innocent person was shot in public by a secretive organisation. A lot of people are pretty angry about that. Protestors have already destroyed the gun."

He frowned. The ice cream had melted enough that it began to drip off the edge of his pancakes. "If there's a lot of media attention then won't they find out that I didn't go to the hospital?"

"Privacy," Alicia said. "They don't know which one you could have gone to, and hospitals aren't allowed to say much."

"There aren't many hospitals in the area," he responded. "Surely someone'll figure it out?"

"That's the thing," Alicia insisted, "they _won't_ figure it out, 'cause there's _no way_ you wouldn't go to a hospital. They'll just think you went private and expensive."

It made sense, so Danny nodded. Nobody would make the connection anyway. Ghosts didn't _have_ secret identities, so as far as Amity Park was concerned, there was no way that his case was anything more than an unfortunate human being shot by a malfunctioning anti-ghost weapon. He'd probably have to miss a bit of school though, to make it seem more believable.

He lapsed into silence as the conversation circled back to Alicia's farm, and if it would be better for Danny to go there for a while to recover until things settled down. They didn't seem too committed to the idea but if they tried to push it he'd push right back. He couldn't leave his mother here alone with the Guys in White closing in, though hopefully the whole media thing would mellow them out for a while.

He wondered what had actually ended up on the news. He'd been pretty out of it last night, but he remembered Valerie doing something with her phone that made the agents back off. A small thought niggled at him, questioning her motives, but he pushed it away. If she wanted to lock him up to study she'd had ample opportunity — he'd even offered himself to her after the entire thing with Danielle and Vlad about a month ago, but she'd turned him down. There was an opportunity last night as well, when he'd transformed in front of her and hung bleeding off her board in the middle of the sky. She could have flown him back to that basement, strapped him down, and done whatever she wanted. But she didn't.

He needed to thank her for that.

"Hey, Mum," he interrupted, "do you know where my phone is?"

Her sympathetic expression was enough for him to piece things together.

He sighed. "It was still in my pocket when I went in the ectoplasm, wasn't it?"

Jack retrieved a warped hunk of metal and glass from the windowsill above the sink. Ectoplasm leaked from the cracks and Danny gingerly took it. He turned it over in his hands, examining the damage, and thumbed the power button.

The partially-dissolved phone stayed dead and he dropped it onto the table with a huff. "I'll just get Sam to buy me another one again," he mumbled. He'd been against having a smartphone _because_ they were so fragile, but Tucker had rigged up a few apps to help with ghost hunting, and Sam insisted on buying a new one every time Danny needed it.

His mother held out her phone. "Tucker wants you to call him back."

"Oh." He took it from her with a frown. Tucker' phone was usually confiscated when he was grounded for the weekend. "I guess seeing me be impaled on the news got Mrs Foley to un-ground him. What about Sam?"

He did _not_ like the look his parents shared.

"What?"

Jack pointedly shoved a massive forkful of pancake into his mouth, and Maddie sighed. "Protestors destroyed the gun," she reminded him. "Where do you think Sam was when that happened?"

He groaned and rolled his eyes. "Great. Now her parents'll like me even _less._ "

Alicia frowned. "It's not your fault your friend broke the law."

"The Mansons'll still say that my influence turned her into a felon or something," he grumbled. "What'd she do to break the law though? She's usually pretty good with protest legal stuff. Was she stupid enough to vandalise the gun herself?"

Jack snorted and motioned to the phone. "Check the news," he suggested.

Danny typed in his mother's passcode and ignored the plethora of missed calls from unknown numbers. He opened the news app, and there at the top of the page was a photo from his Facebook profile, cropped to zoom in on his smiling face. TEENAGER SHOT BY GOVERNMENT GHOST SECURITY SYSTEM. Below the picture was another article link — PROTESTORS ARRESTED IN GHOST SECURITY SCANDAL. The picture for that one was a dramatic shot of action in the town square. People in the background were attacking the gun with whatever weapon they seemed to be able to find, and in the foreground of the picture was a line of defense. Sam stood in the middle of the frame, flames streaming from her flamethrower to keep the police at bay. She likely only hadn't been shot because her father was so influential in town.

The final thumbnail visible on the screen was an image split down the middle. On one side was the Red Huntress on her hoverboard, her silhouette crisp against a clear blue sky. The other half of the picture was of Valerie huddled in the seat of a car. RED HUNTRESS' IDENTITY REVEALED.

Danny gripped the phone tighter. "Oh no," he breathed, "this is a disaster."

Alicia grunted. "Not your fault," she insisted. Danny frowned at her and she rolled her eyes. "Maybe I can't sense emotions like your mum can, but you're the hero type, so I know you'll blame yourself. Keep your core calm, or you'll take longer to heal."

Danny shook his head. He wanted to argue with her, because this was _all_ his fault, but he needed to make sure that his friends were okay _right now._ "I'm gunna call them," he mumbled, wincing at the ache that spread through his entire body when he stood up.

Alicia stood as well. "We need to check your core again first."

He took a step back, shaking his head. The thought of hands running over his throbbing core _again_ was too much right now. "I have to call my friends."

"You _need_ to let us treat you."

He took another step back as she reached for him. He was beginning to feel shaky, but didn't know if it was the building panic or the weakness in his limbs. "No," he insisted. "I need to make sure they're okay."

His mother stood as well and began to move around the table. "Sweetie, calm down."

He shook his head again and backed toward the door, clutching the phone to his chest. Wings unfolded from his back now that the chair wasn't holding them in place and their tips dragged against the floor alongside the tail. They stung at the contact and only added to his building stress. "Don't touch my core," he begged as his back hit the doorframe. His eyes burned with fresh tears and he hated himself even more. His family faltered in their approach and he edged his way through the door. "Please. It's too much."

He couldn't explain to Alicia what he meant, but Maddie's expression softened with understanding as she sensed his increasing stress. "Okay," she said, bumping her elbow into Alicia's arm when she tried to talk. "Go call your friends, and once you've calmed down we'll look at your core."

He was too stressed to even consider letting them near him right now, so he nodded and backed out of the kitchen. He felt off-balance, and blind without the awareness of emotion that he was used to. The usual methods of grounding him were gone. He needed a quiet moment, and his soul _screamed_ at him to _check that the people he cared about were okay, please let them be alright…_

He'd wondered before if it was borderline obsessive, allowing his emotions to rule him like that, but it was such a pervasive part of his life now that he didn't question the urge. After all, if it didn't lead him to do anything bad, then wasn't a bit of emotional attachment a good thing?

He ignored the quiet thought that pressed for his attention. He was _not_ like Vlad. He'd _never_ be like that...

Maddie frowned and he ducked out of the room before she could comment. He just needed to check on his friends, and everything would feel better. The pressure behind his eyes slipped away as he trudged up the stairs, trying to ignore the way his new limbs smarted as they dragged against the steps like trailing clothing. That fresh reminder of the changes to his body twisted at the panic between his ribs, and he pushed the thought away. He'd deal with that later, but first he needed to check that everyone was okay. He couldn't just abandon them.

He reached his room and flopped onto the bed, careful to lie on his stomach to keep pressure off his back, and dialled Tucker's number into his mother's phone. Danny began to feel like he was in control again, and as the phone rang, he took a deep, calming breath.

" _Hello? Mrs Fenton?"_

He smiled at the sound of his best friend's voice. Maybe things were a complete disaster right now, but he could always rely on Tucker to be there for him. "Hey man, on a scale of one to ten, how much trouble do you think we're in right now?"

Tucker snorted. " _Dude, I'm glad you're alive enough to be awake, but have you seen_ _the news? I think this cranks it up to at least a fifteen."_


	13. Insinuations

Valerie was the first person out of their seat when the bell rang for the end of the day. Her hands stung as she hoisted her books off the desk and she gritted her teeth. The room filled with babble and the scraping of chairs, and she pushed past Paulina when she tried to block her way down the aisle between desks.

"Hey!" Paulina snapped, clamping her hand over Valerie's shoulder. Perfectly manicured nails pinched through the fabric of her shirt and Valerie jerked away and headed out the door before anyone else could try to stop her. The day had been absolute hell, and she'd spent any free time running between classes or sitting on the roof of the building where nobody could find her, let alone reach her.

She strode to her locker before most classroom doors had even opened, and fumbled with the combination. Her bandaged hands wasted precious seconds, and she cursed as footsteps filled the hallway.

She'd barely managed to open the lock when someone pushed her from behind, jamming her hands between her body and the door. Valerie hissed through her teeth but otherwise gave no reaction. She ignored whoever had hit her, hoping that they'd just jostled her by mistake, and opened her locker.

" _Hey!_ " Paulina screeched, and Valerie was yanked by the shoulder, forcing her to turn and face the people behind her. "Don't run away from me, you coward!"

The entire group who had once been her friends were gathered in a tight semi-circle, cutting off any path of escape. She shouldn't have stopped for her books. What was one more night of missed homework if it meant avoiding whatever they'd planned? With the current state of her hands, she wasn't so sure that she'd win in a fight, regardless of her training.

She needed them to back off. "I'm not scared of you," Valerie said, "I just have somewhere to be." She tried to keep her voice even, and held up her hands, placating. It made her feel better to have a barrier up as well, ready for anything.

There were more people here than she would have liked, and Valerie wondered if she'd said the wrong thing as Paulina's perfect lips twisted into a sneer. "You think you're _so_ much better than me, don't you?" she hissed, jabbing a finger into Valerie's shoulder. "I can't _believe_ that you've been hunting my _boyfriend!_ "

She snorted, and the words slipped out before she could stop them. "He's not your boyfriend."

Paulina's eyes went wide, and she grabbed her shoulders and pushed her against the locker door. The dial dug painfully into the small of her back. "I bet he hasn't kissed _you!_ " she screamed. "He loves me, and _you_ hunt him, so I'll take your stupid suit and make sure you never hurt him again!"

Valerie couldn't prevent herself from smiling despite the situation. She almost wanted to say that she _had_ kissed Phantom, on more than one occasion, and that he was _actually_ loser Danny Fenton, just to see Paulina's face. It was _almost_ worth it… but she'd never do that to him. Not now.

"What's so funny?" Paulina hissed.

"I don't have my suit with me," Valerie lied. "My dad grounded me, so he's probably waiting to pick me up outside, and I'm taking longer than I should…"

Paulina gripped her shoulders tighter, nails digging into the skin so hard that they were probably drawing blood.

She kept her expression blankly unconcerned. "You _do_ remember that I do taekwondo, right? I can legally defend against an attack, so you should probably let go of me."

Uncertainty flickered in Paulina's expression and she squeezed tighter for a moment before releasing her grasp. "You're not worth it," she scoffed, and sauntered back to her friends. "I'm not getting in trouble over some _loser._ "

Valerie ignored the stinging in her shoulders and picked up her bag as the group began to retreat. "By the way," she called after the crowd had closed around them, "Phantom and I have had a truce for over a month. We're even considering working together, y'know, as ghost hunting _partners._ "

Paulina whirled with a screech, shouting something in Spanish that probably wasn't a compliment as she tried to push through the crowded hallway. Valerie slammed her locker door shut and stepped back into the gaggle of younger students who had just poured out of the closest classroom. She used the crush to duck around the corner and into one of the science labs. The door to the prep room was open and she slipped inside, latching it closed behind her and crouching behind a shelf so that she was out of sight of the little glass windowpane in the door.

The prep room smelled sour from formaldehyde, and a plastic skeleton hung off its frame in the corner, grinning as though amused by the sight of her squatting in the dusty gloom. The shelves were lined with empty beakers and tubs of test tubes, and bunsen burners had been thrown in a haphazard pile in a plastic box in the corner.

Footsteps hammered down the hallway, and someone screamed Valerie's name. A moment later her phone vibrated in her pocket, and she was grateful that she'd put in on silent before class. She pulled it out and sure enough, Paulina was calling her, no doubt trying to listen for her ringtone. Valerie rejected the call and was about to turn her phone off when a text came through from Star. " _Was that a bit much?"_

She shrugged. " _She started it"_

" _I can't keep her away from u if u keep causing fights"_

Valerie sent her a heart emoji. " _Thx for trying"_

She sent a heart back, and Valerie sighed, leaning back so that her head rested against the wall. Star wasn't cruel like the others could be, and she'd kept contact when everything had gone wrong a couple of years ago. Paulina didn't know, of course, but Valerie didn't need validation at school anyway. She was just happy to still have someone who talked to her when she needed it.

" _Sorry for not telling you I'm Red"_

Star sent another heart. " _We all have secrets. Lina's just mad about Phantom"_

" _I have kissed him tho"_ She felt wickedly satisfied sending that. Even if Paulina never saw the text, she'd still had the final word of the argument.

" _OMG_

" _GIRL_

" _We have to talk. Call me after 8_

" _Or fly to my house I guess"_

Valerie sent back a laughing emoji with a quick " _Will do."_ She would never say something that risked Danny's secret, but it was nice to finally have the people in her life know who she was. She was sure that Danny had told Sam and Tucker about her identity anyway, so there was no harm in talking a bit about Phantom to _her_ best friend. She just wouldn't say anything incriminating!

She still felt a bit guilty, but shrugged it off and got to her feet. Football and cheerleading practice started in a minute, and if Paulina's A-list group wasn't on time then Tetslaff would sweep the corridors to look for them. She'd probably be safe if she came out now.

The classroom was empty when she peeked through the little window in the door so Valerie crept out of her hiding place. The hallways were quiet, and a quick glance confirmed that they were clear. She might as well grab the rest of her homework now that the threat seemed to be over, so she headed back to her locker. She needed to get going anyway. She hadn't ended up dropping by Fentonworks yet, and she felt a bit bad about that. Hopefully Danny was healing alright.

When she rounded the corner, Tucker was leaning against the locker next to hers. He raised an eyebrow as she approached and held out a slip of paper with a phone number scrawled on it.

"He wants to talk to you."

Valerie frowned and felt a flicker of unease. She really didn't know where she stood with these people right now, and Tucker acting like some spy from a movie wasn't helping. "Who does?"

He snorted and pushed the paper into her hands. "Danny. His phone melted or something so he can't call you since he lost his contacts, and this is his mum's number. Apparently the media keep trying to call, so text first saying who it is and three ghost emojis so they know it's really you."

When she made no move to pull out her phone, Tucker shrugged and pushed his glasses up his nose. The lenses flashed in the light and Valerie felt like she was being scrutinised.

"I'm sorry," she said, wanting to fill the silence but not sure what to say. She stepped around him and reached for her locker.

"What for?"

She focused on spinning the lock. She didn't want to have this conversation right now, when she didn't know what he knew and she didn't know how to feel. Tucker's friend had been hurt, and he had every right to be angry with her. She could handle that. Even if Friday night hadn't been her fault, she'd caused a lot of pain over the past few years, but Tucker didn't seem upset with her at all. It was weird. "I don't know," she mumbled. "Everything, I guess."

He shrugged again in her peripheral vision. "Team Phantom doesn't hold grudges. Well… maybe Sam does, but she'll get over it. Your livestream trick'll help with that."

She snorted. " _Team Phantom?_ Really?"

"Says the _Red Huntress,_ " he joked back. "It's Danny, Sam, Jazz, and me." He glanced around. "And Phantom too, I guess. Look, let's talk later. Danny said you can visit him since he's _out of hospital_ now. He's doing okay, by the way, just won't be at school for a while longer. There were some… _complications,_ so the _hospital_ said to take it easy."

Valerie frowned. "But…" She trailed off as Tucker winked, and then she heard the footsteps as well. "Yeah," she agreed.

"He said I could add you to our group chat, so check Facebook later."

"Okay, thanks," she said, and shoved the last few books into her bag as the janitor rounded the corner. "See you later."

Tucker gave a little smile and nodded to her bag. "You want me to carry that, to give your hands a rest?"

Valerie made a show of swinging her backpack onto her shoulders. "I think I can manage," she responded, shutting her locker and heading for the door. "I won't be walking, anyway."

He rolled his eyes, but there was a twinkle of amusement there. "Of course you won't. I don't suppose you could give me a lift like Phantom does? Or do you have to get to work?"

"I don't have work today," she said as he fell into step beside her. "I just have to be somewhere before five, so so long as you don't need to go too far, I guess I could fly you." She didn't know if that was the right thing to do, and part of her wondered if they should take the risk, but she'd also burned a lot of bridges and could probably do with a few new friends. It helped that he was involved with the ghost hunting as well, or at least that's what she assumed. She'd seen Sam and Tucker running around during ghost attacks, but she'd always thought that they were just trying to photograph Phantom, like everyone else in the town. Valerie was getting a bit sick of having to defend curious bystanders, especially when the distraction usually gave the ghosts time to slip away.

As they headed down the hallway she gave a little shake of her head. People were so obsessed with Phantom that they regularly put themselves in danger for the chance to attract his attention. He'd even had a media helicopter chase him once! Her secret was _nothing_ compared to his, and she wondered again how people would react if they knew that their dead superhero was actually a living, breathing hybrid. Or whatever he was. He'd told her once that Danielle was half a ghost but also half a girl, and so she'd have to assume for now that he was exactly the same. How Maddie fitted into everything was another puzzle altogether, and Valerie figured that she'd just have to wait until Danny was ready to explain things to her.

She tucked the phone number into her skirt pocket. Maybe that conversation would come sooner than she'd anticipated.

"So…" Tucker sent her a sidelong glance. "I was surprised to see you here today."

She shrugged. "What's the point of missing school? People know. Delaying things just means more missed work."

He snorted. "Damn, you're so practical… In a good way, in a good way!" He held up his hands like he was worried that she might hit him.

She made no comment on his reaction. Words weren't going to fix things right now, so she had to _show_ them that she'd changed. "What about _your_ friends?" she asked. He'd looked so subdued today without them there. "Is Sam okay?"

Tucker held open the door. "She'll be fine," he said as they stepped into the sunlight. "She got arrested, but the police know her parents, so she didn't get shot or treated too badly or anything. She was on the group chat earlier, apparently her dad let her stay in a private cell overnight to teach her a lesson or something. They bailed her out yesterday, and she probably has to go to court later but it can't be too bad since she didn't actually hurt anyone. I don't know, I'm not a lawyer. She's hella grounded, though, and her parents'll probably keep her out of school for a few more days until this blows over."

"The police know her parents?" she wondered.

Tucker readjusted the strap of his backpack. "Oh, yeah, I'll let you find out from her though. She doesn't like us telling people about their reputation."

Valerie frowned, and tried to imagine what kind of people the Mansons must be for the police to recognise Sam behind that flamethrower and collectively avoid shooting her. Were they gothic delinquents just like their daughter and had enough brushes with the law to be recognisable? Did one of them work for the police force? Were they related to the police chief or something? It was useless to speculate, but she couldn't stop herself.

She walked down the school steps, and Tucker kept pace. "I thought we were flying?"

"I told Paulina that my dad confiscated my suit," she said. "We just have to get out of sight in case she's still around here."

He nudged her arm. "There's a side street over there that Danny sometimes uses to change forms."

She changed her course and tried to appear nonchalant. "You go flying often?"

"He doesn't like walking very much." He gave a little laugh. "He used to still walk to and from school with us, but I guess flying's faster, and easier, so after a while he just… stopped walking."

She didn't know how to respond to such a casual dismissal of humanity so she just followed Tucker as he continued to ramble.

"Y'know," he stared at the ground as they walked, "I'm glad you caught him. On Friday night. Um, and the livestream and everything. He said you saw him change and…" The words caught and Tucker took a shuddering breath. "He's my best mate, y'know? So, um, thanks. For not letting him fall."

She instantly knew what he hadn't been able to say. _Thanks for not shooting him yourself._ Valerie sighed as they rounded the corner into the small street that cut between two houses. It was bordered by high fences scribbled with spiky graffiti — the perfect place to change into your secret identity. "I'll never hurt him again," she promised.

He sniffed and wiped his sleeve across his face, and she wondered how hard it must be to not _be there_ for your best friend. Tucker could only do so much from the ground.

"Thanks." He finally looked at her, and there were streaks on his face that shone in the sunlight.

She didn't know what to say, so she flicked her thumb against a button built into one of her bracelets. Her paper-thin but virtually impenetrable suit folded out from where it had been stored in the soles of her shoes, enveloping her body in a smooth movement. It was like a superhero movie, and she'd spent many nights trying to figure out how her suit worked, but all she could tell was that it was some kind of nanotechnology that that tech ghost had made. It may have been made by a ghost, but it had never failed her, and Valerie's mouth twisted beneath her visor as she remembered that her first suit had technically been given to her by a ghost as well.

Her hoverboard formed from the soles of her boots and she held out a hand to Tucker. His gaze skittered over her face and she realised that her visor was on its opaque setting, so she gave a verbal command that caused the glass to become clear. It probably wasn't glass, but again, she didn't know enough about the science behind it to be sure.

"You'll have to let me look at your suit sometime," he said as he settled behind her.

Valerie hovered for a moment, testing their balance, and lifted her arms so that he could grip her around the waist. "Don't fall," she cautioned. "My boots lock to the board, but you'll need to hold on."

"Not like I haven't been dropped before." His tone was light, and it was probably meant as a joke, but Valerie still flinched.

"You should get some real ghost hunting tech," she responded and they rose into the air, "like what I've got. Or something."

His laughter vibrated through her back. "Oh, yeah, like Team Phantom could go ask Technus for some battlesuits. I'm sure that that'd go down _wonderfully._ "

"You name the ghosts?" she asked, leaking as much incredulity into her tone as she could.

"They name themselves," he retorted. "I mean, c'mon, half of them announce their names all the time anyway. You've seriously never heard him shout about being Technus, the master of all technology?"

"They don't speak in English half the time."

Tucker tightened his grip around her waist as they rose above the trees. The houses on either side fell away, and a gentle wind rocked against them. "True, true… By the way, I'm in the apartment building down past the library."

"I thought you lived in a house?" she asked, angling in the right direction.

He raised his voice to be heard above the wind. "Yeah, well, my parents didn't end up having more kids, so the house was a bit big. It was also too close to the park and kept getting hit by ghost attacks, so we moved."

"You were never angry about that?"

She felt him shrug against her. "Not really. I mean, it was only a matter of time before _someone_ managed to rip a portal through Amity, and a lot of natural portals happen here anyway, so you can't really be upset about it. We're the ones who choose to live here, even though it's haunted."

Valerie chewed on her lip as they soared above the town. She didn't know what to think about Tucker's perspective, but then again, she hadn't been spending her time around ghosts in the way that he had. A nasty part of her reasoned that he hadn't lost everything to them either.

A small voice sent a reminder that although she'd lost her social status, _he'd_ technically lost his best friend, and she wondered how Tucker had found out about the whole Phantom thing. She didn't feel right asking about that without Danny there though, but then she remembered the number in her pocket and the unfulfilled promise of a visit. She'd call him later, or drop by his house. Maybe things would make more sense once she'd listened to his version of the story.

They were above the apartment building now, and Tucker risked moving one of his hands to point at the laneway a few houses down. "Danny usually phases me into my room, but you can drop me there," he said.

"Your parents have seriously never caught you?"

"Dad works, and Mum's usually busy in the kitchen in the afternoons, or out grocery shopping. She just thinks I'm quiet coming in, and I usually don't get home until dinner time anyway."

Valerie shook her head in wonder. "You guys have it all figured out, don't you?"

"Not perfectly," he admitted, "but I'm sure you know all about balancing a secret life."

"We probably have more in common than we realise," she admitted, and lowered them into the laneway until her board floated about a foot above the ground.

Tucker hopped off and gave her a little wave. "Thanks for that. And, um, thanks again for helping Danny."

Valerie nodded, trying to work past the sudden tautness in her throat. "See you tomorrow," she said, turning her visor opaque again and jetting back into the sky. She hovered in place once she was high enough, and took a deep breath. Thoughts welled unbidden to her mind, like they had for the past few days. She kept seeing Phantom's face bloom with horror, his glow bright against the night as he was thrown against her. White halos enveloped them, sweeping away his appearance but providing enough illumination before the lights disappeared to reveal one of the only people who she had ever really trusted.

He barely grabbed her ankle in time, and hung there, suspended in the darkness.

The afternoon sky was clear and blue, but lightning flashed through her thoughts, and she'd floated there, frozen, as he bled onto her boots.

He could have fallen. It was a miracle that he didn't.

A question had kept her awake for the past few nights, and had niggled at her during every spare moment: If he _did_ fall, would she have caught him?

She'd relived that moment over and over again, examining herself. If he hadn't managed to grab her board, would she have flown to the rescue before he plunged to the ground storeys below them?

If the roles were reversed, would he have caught _her?_

She knew the answer to the latter question, but she wasn't so sure about herself. It was eating her alive. Was she really the type of person who'd allow someone to fall like that? Even if that person was supposedly her enemy?

Her shoulders still stung a bit and others flitted through her thoughts. If Paulina had been dropped during a ghost fight, Valerie would still try to catch her, regardless of their relationship. So why was she questioning whether she would have caught Danny?

She watched Tucker enter his apartment building, and wrapped her arms around herself. She didn't know enough about half ghosts, but she tried to tell herself that whoever Phantom was, she would have caught him before he hit the ground. Nobody deserved to die like that.

Okay, maybe she wouldn't have caught Vlad Masters… But then again, wasn't her anger the thing that started her mess with Phantom in the first place? The dog thing didn't seem to fit with what she knew about him, but she'd have to get his version of the story, the _full_ story, before she made up her mind. Valerie just couldn't bring herself to trust someone blindly, even if she _did_ sort of owe him after causing all those scars.

She still wasn't sure what to think. She'd swung from self-loathing to self-righteous anger with all three half ghosts and back to hating herself in a seemingly endless cycle all weekend. The media hadn't helped things, but they'd backed off a bit once she made a statement with her dad's help the day before. She'd hoped that school would be a distraction, but she'd been swarmed by people until the teachers intervened, and then during class her hands had hurt too much to hold a pen and her thoughts had been overruled by the same cycle of the past few days, so she didn't even take any notes. She should have just stayed home.

She needed to talk to Danny. It was the only way to put her mind to rest.

Before she could go to Fentonworks, she had one more stop to make. It was lucky that Tucker lived so close to the town's business hub, and Valerie zipped a few blocks over until she was hovering above her intended destination.

She didn't really know how to go about this. It wasn't like she could walk in and ask for an appointment, but the alternative was going to his _house,_ and she didn't exactly feel safe doing that.

Valerie swooped down into the parking lot of the town's council offices, and her suit folded away as she stepped out of the air. The front doors probably weren't the best option, so she walked around the side of the building. She'd been to City Hall only a few weeks earlier, on a school excursion for their political science class, so she knew that once she got inside she'd be able to find her way without too much trouble. A utility access door caught her eye and she walked up to it, holding her head high in a way that she hoped would tell people that she belonged there. The door was unlocked and she slipped inside, finding herself in what looked like an empty break room. She tiptoed past a table smudged with coffee cup crop circles, and paused at the other end of the room to listen at the door. When she didn't hear anything, she stepped out into a carpeted corridor and tried to get her bearings.

The STAFF ONLY door that she had just exited was sandwiched between two toilets, and she tried to remember which direction the mayor's office would be. He was on the second floor, so her first goal was to find a staircase or elevator. Her heart felt like it would burst through her chest as she turned right, heading deeper into the building, and she wished she could have just flown up to the mayor's window. It would have made things so much easier, but with her plan for this imminent conversation, she didn't need the media to have any photos of the Red Huntress "breaking in." She didn't know how much time she'd need anyway, and she didn't want their conversation to be cut short.

She somehow managed to find the way up without running into anyone, and Valerie considered her options. The elevator was easier, but she was more likely to run into someone, so she went for the stairs instead. The air in the concrete stairwell was cool and damp, and she took a moment to lean against the wall and breathe. She laid a hand over her racing heart and felt the cold seep through her back where her shirt pressed against the wall. She wished she could turn invisible, and wondered if that was something she might be able to build into her suit. Danny might have some ideas…

No. She couldn't think about that yet. Valerie would be lucky if he even wanted to be in the same classroom as her after this, let alone working in a lab to make her suit even more dangerous for ghosts.

She took another moment to soothe her anxiety before pushing away from the wall and trotting up the stairs. She still couldn't believe that she was actually doing this, and the consequences of being caught set her heart racing again. She was trespassing, even if this _was_ the council offices, but that wasn't even the worst part about this little excursion.

She reached the second floor, and paused at the heavy fire door. It ground open on whining hinges so that a sliver of yellow light fell across her sneakers, and she peeked through the gap. The hallway beyond was also empty, and she could hear faint chatter and the clicking of keyboards filtering through the cracks beneath office doors.

Valerie eased her way into the open, and crept in what she hoped was the right direction. If her memory was correct, then the room she wanted was near the back of the building.

A door slammed around the corner, and Valerie tensed at the sound of heavy footsteps on the carpet. The safety of the stairwell was too far behind her now, and she glanced around frantically. The door just ahead of her was open, and she could just make out the STAFF KITCHEN sign on the wall next to it.

She darted inside, ducking out of sight of the hallway. It was empty, probably since there was less than an hour left of the workday, and Valerie sighed as the footsteps passed the doorway and continued out of earshot. She leaned against the counter and ran shaking hands through her hair. This had been a terrible idea, she should have just gone to his house! Even if it was more dangerous that way, at least it'd be a private place for her to enact her incredibly stupid plan.

She had to do this, no matter how stupid she was being. She was up against the ropes and had nowhere else to turn.

She lingered for another moment, in case the person came back, and moved a bit so that she wasn't brushing up against the hulking coffee machine on the bench. There was a sign taped to the wall with a note instructing interns how to make a perfect coffee for the mayor.

She rolled her eyes. Trust Vlad to be too lazy to make his own coffee.

Listening to make sure that the coast was clear, Valerie left the kitchen and walked as confidently as she could in the direction of the mayor's office. She neared the corner of the hallway, where it bent and continued past her destination, and she winced as she realised that she'd forgotten about his secretary.

Valerie dipped back behind the bend, frowning as she wondered how to get around her. She needed a distraction, something to…

Oh. That might actually work.

She headed back to the kitchen and grabbed a plain white mug from the draining rack next to the sink. The huge coffee machine crouched on the bench, and Valerie jammed the mug into place and frowned at the controls. She pushed the buttons in the order that the sign told her to, and as coffee and steam hissed out of the nozzles she used the elastic on her wrist to pull her hair into the best bun she could manage with stiff, bandaged fingers. She couldn't do much about her clothing, let alone her easily-recognisable face, but maybe the secretary wouldn't be able to place her in the unexpected context.

It was the best plan she had, so she'd just have to try.

Valerie picked up the mug and stepped confidently back into the hallway, tossing her head so the stray curls that had already escaped her bun flicked away from her face. She rounded the corner without pause and walked straight up to the secretary's desk.

The woman seated there barely glanced away from her computer. "Do you have an appointment?"

"My supervisor said to bring coffee to Mayor Masters," she responded, and slipped past the desk.

The receptionist looked up with a frown, but Valerie was already stepping into Vlad's office.

"Hey!"

She shut the door, twisting the lock as the receptionist rattled the handle from the other side.

Valerie ignored the shouting and turned to scowl at Vlad as he got up from behind his desk. He raised an eyebrow at her and walked to the door. She almost stepped in front of him, to try to block him from leaving, but in his presence her courage slipped away just long enough for him to open the door. "It's alright, Melissa," he said.

The receptionist glowered. "I'll call security!" she threatened.

Vlad clasped his hands behind his back, and his shoulders seemed to swell until he filled the doorway. "There's really no need for that," he soothed. "I was going to ask you to schedule an appointment with Miss Gray anyway, so her timing is impeccable."

Valerie rolled her eyes and stalked across the room, depositing the coffee on Vlad's desk and leaning her hip against the edge. She crossed her arms and put on her best scowl as he placated his receptionist and shut the door. The lock clicked audibly and she swallowed against her rising anxiety.

He turned to face her and for a moment she thought his eyes flashed red, but the light above him flickered and he huffed. "This place is falling apart," he said, tilting his head toward the faulty fluorescent strip. "Now what can I do for you, Miss Gray?"

She told herself to hold her ground, but his gait as he crossed the room was smooth enough that he could have been gliding, and she fumbled as she twisted to keep him in her sight when he moved back to his chair. "I need to talk to you," she began. All of her carefully-formed statements and accusations dashed to pieces like waves against the rocks, and she shoved her hands into her pockets before they could begin to tremble. The sudden pressure stung, and she winced.

"Obviously," he sighed. "Now what do you want? Or should I talk to _you_ about your little PR nightmare and that you really should be careful what you say regarding your… _origin_ story?"

She swallowed again, and gingerly removed her hands from her pockets. The bandages chafed against her burns. "Maybe you're the one who needs to worry about that," she tried, and hoped it sounded firmer than she felt as she met his unwavering gaze. "A poor, innocent girl was manipulated into ghost hunting two years ago by a wealthy, middle-aged man? Who encouraged her to sneak out at night and put herself in the firing line? Who now has visible injuries and could have been shot, just like poor Danny Fenton?"

His only indication of unease was a slight curling of his fingers, and sweat trickled down her spine. The room had definitely been cooler only moments ago…

"Well, whoever manipulated that girl should be wary of the potential consequences… should she have the proof." His eyes gleamed again, but this time, the light was steady. "You, Miss Gray, have nothing, and that gun would never hurt you anyway."

"It hurt Danny Fenton," she countered. "Plain, human Danny Fenton, who was only there because his parents used the rain at night for a driving lesson."

His shoulders tensed, and she stepped back in fear before she could stop herself. She tried to disguise her unease by using her momentum to move in front of the desk and swing her backpack off her shoulders. She placed it on top of Vlad's papers, pulling a pile of her own paperwork from a side pocket.

They stared at each other, and she belatedly remembered that if he really was anything like Danny, he'd been able to sense every emotion from the moment she entered the room. Her anxiety surged forth again, but she flourished her papers under his nose and tried to exude determination as the temperature in the room soared. "Do you know how much the hospital charged me?" she demanded. "For the drip, and the cleaning, and the antibiotics, and everything else?"

He sighed again, and his glare slipped away into weary boredom. "You really think I'm going to pay that?"

She slammed the papers down onto the top of his pile, the smack of the palm of her hand satisfying enough to make the resulting pain worth it. "Oh, you will," she responded, "unless you want everyone to find out the whole secret of my _origin story,_ as you put it. Did you know that this version of my suit records everything? Including the time you told me that you were my benefactor? I know you're rich enough to stay the mayor and everything, but the _scandal…_ "

He dropped his shoulders and put on an air of absolute nonchalance. "You're not the first person to try to blackmail me, my dear, but this is simply ridiculous."

She held back from playing the pity card. He didn't care that they'd have to go into debt for this, that they wouldn't be able to pay their rent, that they'd be out on the street. Vlad didn't have a heart for things like that. She blew air through tightly pursed lips and braced her hands on the table.

Vlad's forehead creased as she grappled past a rush of fear-fuelled adrenaline. "I know who you are," she hissed. "You're a slimy, manipulative, _evil_ half ghost who threatens the town in full view of news cameras all the damned time. Now if you want that to stay between you and me and whoever else you have in your pocket, you'll pay for my medical bills, and a salary backpay for the past two years of ghost hunting so I'm not living on the brink of poverty anymore! It's all spare change to you anyway with your billions, so just give me the cash and we'll never talk about this again."

His jaw fell the slightest bit open, revealing a sliver of teeth _just_ too pointed to be natural, and then Vlad leaned back in his chair and gave a mirthless laugh. "Oh my dear, I didn't know you had it in you!"

She held her ground and glared at him, her gut tightening as he chuckled, but in a breath his laughter was gone and his fingers were at her throat. Red light glinted in her peripheral vision and she tried to tug away but she was _trapped._ His grip wasn't tight enough to restrict her breathing, but he had her, and she wasn't stupid enough to twist away while that light shone with heat againt her neck.

"And how do we ensure that you don't say anything after I pay you?" he drawled. His eyes were pools of brimstone, and steam gushed from between protruding fangs as sweat poured down her face.

She coughed, and stared him straight in those soulless eyes. Every part of her ached to call forth her suit, to be wrapped in its cool security, but if she tried to summon it now there was no guarantee that he wouldn't snap her neck at the first sign of a weapon.

"My word," she choked, and didn't bother trying to hide the way she trembled as she grasped his forearms. "I'm not a liar. Not anymore."

He frowned, and she winced as he squeezed his fingers tighter. Nails dug into her flesh… and he dropped her.

She hadn't realised that they'd been floating until her feet hit the floor and she sagged against the desk, trying not to collapse as her knees buckled. She was panting, and felt stifled, like she was in a sauna with the heat up far too high.

Vlad returned to his seat, completely unruffled. "There's a tradition in the Ghost Zone," he said, and extended his hand. She drew in another gasp and flinched away before realising that he wasn't trying to attack her again, and before she could consider the ramifications, she reached out and grabbed his hand.

His eyes glowed even brighter than before, and she couldn't tear her gaze away. "I'll pay you one million dollars for your silence regarding my secrets, and the entirety of our dealings with each other," he said, and his voice howled like a forest burning.

He didn't say anything else, but she couldn't blink, and after a few seconds she realised it was her turn to talk. "If you pay me that money in full and never try to take it back I'll never mention your secrets again, so long as they're still secrets," she responded, and knew the words were from her soul.

His mouth twisted, probably at her choice of words, but he inclined his head and broke their grasp. His hold over her shattered like shards through her heart, and Valerie staggered back and sank to her knees, clutching her chest and gasping as dark spots swam across her vision as though she'd just been looking at the sun.

When she regained her composure he was staring at her, and she forced herself to her feet. The heat had dwindled somewhat, but still beat against her lungs like air rushing through a freshly-opened oven door. He held out her paperwork in a smooth, slow movement, and his burning red gaze faded back into the washed-out blue of a cloudless Summer sky. "Meet me at my mansion tonight, and I'll give you the money in cash. Nobody will be able to trace it that way. Deposit it however you wish, but gradual transactions would probably be best for you."

She nodded, and took the papers with hands that shook. She shoved them into her backpack and staggered to the door without another word.

"Miss Gray?"

She paused with her fingers on the handle, glancing back over her shoulder. "Yes?"

"Will you be visiting Daniel?"

Despite herself, she nodded.

"Help him stay out of trouble, hm?" He grinned, a fang glinted in the light, and he held a finger against his lips.

She shuddered but gave a little nod before unlocking the door and slipping outside. The air was blissfully cool against her heated face and neck, and Valerie ignored the receptionist's glare as she stumbled around the corner. When she reached the damp, cold solitude of the stairwell, she collapsed on the landing, rested her head on her knees, and simply _breathed._

She didn't move until the rush of the workday ended and City Hall sank softly into silence.


	14. Convalescence

Danny rolled his eyes when the doorbell rang again. He was trying to catch up on his English reading, and _Macbeth_ was difficult enough to understand without constant interruptions! The house had been bombarded by people all day, with everyone from the media to their estranged neighbours from across the road expressing concerns through the keyhole in an effort to be the first person to catch a glimpse of the elusive teenager. At least the folks from next door had dropped around dinner for his family, with no expectation of being allowed inside — they were a good sort, and had a little boy that always smiled at him whenever they crossed paths. As annoying as the constant busybodies were becoming, it was sort of nice to feel like people cared about him, even if he wasn't a huge part of their lives.

The bell rang a second time, and he frowned at the sound of voices. Was it the nice neighbours again? Danny carefully marked the page in his book and sat up from where he had been lying on his side, grimacing at the stiffness that bored down to his bones. He gingerly stretched his wings and his new muscles smarted with the strain. They were huge, and ungainly, and got in the way of everything. He couldn't even lie comfortably on his bed anymore, and felt less human than he ever had. His core flickered like a tiny candle, and he turned inward, fanning it with concentration until it settled enough for him to feel the emotions that wafted up through the floorboards.

He tried to sense who it was, but even with his core in perfect condition he was only just learning how to recognise the people he shared a connection with from a distance. While still healing, he had no chance. At least he couldn't sense anything more negative than a twinge of anxiety from downstairs, so it probably wasn't the Guys in White trying to barge their way into his home. Hopefully.

Reading people who weren't in the same room was exhausting, and his strength trailed away like fine sand in an hourglass. He drew back into himself, leaning against the bedframe as the sudden wave of weariness drew his eyelids closed. His core ebbed back into that tiny flame again, burning softly, like an ember that slept between charred logs after the fire had died. He clenched his jaw and tried not to cry at the sheer unfairness of the whole situation.

His door scraped against the carpet and Danny's eyes jolted open. He'd been so caught up in his own frustration that he hadn't even noticed anyone walking down the hall, and as he turned to see who it was, he felt a wave of apprehension that wasn't his own flood the room. The emotion was swept away a second later by a wall of sheer shock, and he sagged back against the bedframe again as Valerie stood in his doorway and stared. Her eyes were blown wide, bandaged hands hovering over her mouth as she took in his appearance, and Danny glanced past her at his mother.

Maddie shouldered past Valerie with a murmured apology, and he fixed his gaze on the bottle in her hand. "Hi, Val," he said, and met his mother's eyes. "Is that ectoplasm?"

Maddie nodded, and he felt her brush reassurance over the room. "Drink it all before dinner," she ordered.

He radiated affirmative intention, which was pretty much the ghostly equivalent of a head nod, and took a swig from the bottle as soon as she passed it to him. The ectoplasm was cool and refreshing, sinking into his core and shooting clarity through his thoughts.

Valerie dropped her hands from her mouth and took a tentative step closer. Her shock bled into horror, and she trembled like a bell that had just been struck.

Danny could sense that his mother wanted to stay, but he waved off her protective presence with comfortable confidence. He needed to talk to Valerie, but as she leaned her hand against his bookshelf as though it was the only solid thing left in the world, he realised that maybe _she_ needed to talk to _him_ more.

Maddie took the hint, and squeezed his shoulder before leaving the room. "Dinner's in an hour," she called cheerfully, and shut the door.

Valerie sank into his desk chair and held her head in her hands, and Danny tried to dispel her guilt and intense self-loathing with calm nonchalance before remembering that it was pointless. "Valerie?"

She didn't move, and he frowned at the sound of a quiet sob.

"Hey, Val…" Groaning, Danny used the bedframe to lever himself to his aching feet. For a moment he swayed where he stood, and wondered if he'd even be able to walk across the room. He sipped the ectoplasm again, hoping its fresh energy would be enough to get him through the evening. The black scales on the back of his hand flashed in the light with blue iridescence, and he wondered if this would be easier for her if he was in ghost form. He considered transforming, but he was just so _tired,_ and wanted to conserve the energy he had left for whatever this conversation was going to be.

He shuffled across the room, trying to hold his wings folded and tail off the floor like he'd been practising. It made his back ache with the strain but if he wanted to be able to return to his normal life then this was the first step.

She jerked when he placed a hand on her shoulder, and Danny winced as he lowered himself to sit on the floor in front of her. "Hey," he tried again.

She raised her tear-streaked face to look at him, and he grabbed a napkin from the pile of spares that were shoved into the top drawer of his desk. "Here," he said, and held out the crushed tissue paper.

She hiccupped, and used it to wipe her eyes. As soon as she was done she looked at him again, and Danny's plastered smile faltered as more tears slipped down her cheeks. "Oh gosh," she choked, and scrunched the napkin against her nose. "Danny…" she hunched over and hiccupped again.

He handed her another napkin. "Got plenty more where that came from," he joked. She blew her nose and took a third one straight out of the open drawer, burying her face in it and sobbing helplessly. "Hey… Val, it's okay…"

"I did this," she wailed, muffled by her handful of paper. "This is all my fa-a-ault!"

He shook his head and leaned forward. "No, please, you saved me… Val, c'mon, if it weren't for you, I'd be in some cell in one of those crazy government facilities right now!" He placed a hand on her knee, and rose until he was kneeling in front of her. The healing wounds that sliced through him complained at the position, and he used his other hand to lean against the arm of the chair, trying to take the load off his aching core muscles. He didn't know if she'd appreciate the contact, but his spectral core screamed at him that physical touch soothed pains and misunderstandings, and he couldn't fight the urge to try to comfort her in what he realised was probably some sort of instinctual response.

Her bare knee was hot under his hand, and as she glanced through her fingers at the spot he realised belatedly that it might not be the best place to touch a girl who had a third-dan black belt without her permission. Her flicker of discomfort sliced against him like a sudden breath of hot air, and he pulled his hand away and sank back to sit on the carpet again. "Sorry," he mumbled, looking down at the frayed cuffs of his pyjama pants as his cheeks burned.

"Your hands are so cold," she whispered, and her voice was scratchy but steadier than a moment ago.

"Ice core." He held his hands up and although it sapped his energy he willed snowflakes to burst around glowing fingers in a tiny flurry. They were so fragile that they melted into a fine mist before they reached the ground, and he dropped his hands to his lap and leaned sideways so that the desk supported him. The drawer knob dug into his shoulder and he shifted with a wince.

She frowned, her unease prickling his senses like static fuzz, and he chewed his lip and looked anywhere but at her. "Crap, was that weird?" he blurted. "Damn, Val, sorry, I thought using my powers… Oh, man… I'm such a screw up..."

She sniffed, and he felt a hand close over his shoulder. "It's okay."

He chafed against her clumsy awkwardness as it swelled around them. "It's weird, right?" Even through the bandages and the fabric of his shirt, she was warm. It wasn't the sharp, destructive heat he felt from Vlad, but a gentle, peaceful warmth that felt like a sip of hot chocolate on a cold snowy day.

He felt her shrug more than saw it, like a ripple of nonchalance through the ambient stress. "I mean, we're trying, right?" She wiped her nose on the bunched up napkins and gave a decisive sniff, before tossing them into the wastepaper basket in the alcove beneath the desk.

Danny busied himself by taking a sip of ectoplasm, sighing as it beat his anxiety back down to a more manageable level. "Yeah," he agreed, "and trying's the first step."

She hummed in agreement and pulled away again. "I'm still mad at you," she confessed, "but I'm also mad at myself, so I don't really know what to think."

He nodded, ducking his head and gazing up through his lashes in what he hoped was a remorseful gesture. He waited for her to keep going, but silent expectation wrapped around them, and he sighed when he realised that she was waiting for him to talk. "I, um…" his voice cracked, and he winced and shifted his aching wings before trying again. "I've never really… _explained_ everything to anyone until the other day, so I'm probably terrible at it, but I guess you want to know what happened?"

"It's a start." She folded her arms across her chest and leaned back in the seat.

He sighed, and the deeper breath ached as it pressed against his ribs. His legs had started to stutter with pins and needles, and the spot where his spine extended into a tail throbbed at the pressure of sitting on the carpet. "I need to get off the floor first." He braced himself against the edge of the desk, hissing through his teeth as he levered himself to his feet. His shoulders burned at the activity, and he leaned against the desk for a moment, gasping for air like a dying man.

He trembled as his core screamed that it was _too much,_ and Danny cursed himself for being so stupid as his head spun. He'd been fine to walk around the first day after his disaster, but that was because he was so overcharged from the ectoplasm bath. Now that had worn off, and every step weighed against him like an anchor around his neck.

The rim of the bottle pressed against his lips, and Danny gulped as cold, sweet ectoplasm trickled onto his tongue. It swept the clouds out of his mind, and he feebly accepted it from Valerie's hands and took a long draught before daring to meet her eyes.

"You back, space man?"

He mumbled in assent, not trusting himself to try to talk coherently while his legs shook from the strain of holding him up.

She rolled her eyes and exasperated disbelief swirled around him. "I lost you for a minute there." Her arm looped through his, providing gentle pressure that peeled him away from the desk. "Come on, you need to lie down."

"Sorry," he mumbled, and leaned heavily on her as she guided him back across his room. She moved the books out of the way and helped him onto the bed, positioning the pillows so that he could sit leaning against the bedframe. As she pulled the blanket up over his legs he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying not to let helplessness well up inside him and drown everything else out. He couldn't pace the room to dispel his emotions, so he needed to stay calm and focus on what he wanted to achieve here.

She made to pull back, and Danny squeezed her wrist. He gestured to the end of the bed, and she slipped out of his hold and settled to sit where he'd indicated.

"Thanks," he mumbled, and drank the final few mouthfuls from his bottle. "I've been getting better, but it's slower than I'd like."

She snorted and bunched a spare pillow behind her back so she could lean against the wall more comfortably. "You had giant spikes punch holes through you on Friday night. Count yourself lucky that you're not in a coma right now, or in _the morgue."_

He smirked. "Been there, done that."

Her expression faltered as her emotions sobered. "Really?"

Danny rolled his eyes. "It was a joke, Val, c'mon." He felt a bit guilty as he sensed her sudden pang of sadness. "I've never been in the morgue. I'm not actually dead, I'm just… I guess a living person with a ghost core?"

"Like Danielle."

He sighed. "Yeah. The ghosts call us halfas."

"Oh." She picked at her bandages, and Danny forced himself to stay quiet as her curiosity churned. "Have you heard from her lately?"

He shrugged, guilt prickling through his gut as he realised that he hadn't even thought about Danielle since his parents had discovered his secret. He'd been stressed, but that wasn't really an excuse. "Um, she messages me whenever she has wifi. She told me last week that she was hiking in New Zealand. I keep telling her that we can find her a place to live here, and settle down, but she wants to see the world. I think she just wants a bit of freedom after everything with Vlaaaah-consin Ghost."

Surprise shot between them, but he hoped it was just directed at the whole New Zealand thing. Hopefully his slip wasn't as obvious as it sounded!

"Where does she get all that cash?"

He smirked. "One of the people who created her and then betrayed her has a _lot_ of bank accounts, so she just stole one of his cards from his safe. I'm not sure how she figured out the pin, but it hasn't been cancelled yet, so I guess he hasn't noticed. He's so rich that I doubt he monitors that stuff much."

Valerie went still, and Dany squirmed as she stared at him. "Who created her? I thought you said she was your cousin."

Damn. "Uh… we say we're cousins because we don't like the real term for it."

"Which is?"

He twisted his fingers in the blanket and clamped down on his racing thoughts. He didn't need to get flustered right now, because when he was stressed, he talked way too much, and there was plenty of Danielle's story that Valerie didn't need to know. He couldn't have her figuring Vlad out and going after him, it was just too dangerous!

"Um, she's sort of, kind of… my… very non-consensual but super sweet and I'd die for her… clone?"

She blinked. Once. Twice. Then her brows drew over her eyes like sudden storm clouds. "Your _what?!"_

Danny flinched as her stunned fury assaulted his senses.

She swore, harsher than he'd ever heard her before. "When I get my hands on him…"

"On who?" Danny was seized by sudden panic, horror sliding through him as he clenched his hands around the sheets. The tip of his tail twitched against his shin and he hated it, but her words distracted him enough that he didn't spiral back into what was becoming a near-constant state of dysphoria.

"...Plasmius."

Her reply was too slow, the rage in the air dulling with a guarded measure of restraint, and Danny knew that she'd figured it out. "Oh no," he breathed, eyes roving over her as he searched for any damage. "Val, you have to stay away from him, in either persona of yours or his. He's not above killing people. You _can't_ let him know that you've figured him out."

Swathes of dark red wrapped around her throat, burns that weren't bad enough to blister yet, but still fresh. Valerie sighed and leaned her head back so that it thumped against the wall, and Danny caught a whiff of nervous sweat that lingered around her. He'd thought that it was because of this visit, but now…

"You visited him," he realised. Her dull resignation was all the confirmation he needed, and he pushed on. "You went and saw him, didn't you? And he… he hurt you."

"Stop it," she huffed, and he furrowed his brow as he felt her frustration.

"Val, you can't just—"

"Stop reading my mind!" she snapped, lurching upright and glaring at him as harshly as the midday sun.

For a moment everything seemed to stop, and Danny caught a brief glimpse of what she must be going through. She was trying to piece things together with only a scant few points of knowledge, and was filling in the gaps as best she could. Her frustration welled through the air and he realised that they'd both been going through the same thing this weekend, feeling like they were drowning as their worlds shifted around them. Feeling left out. Betrayed. Confused.

Her anger suddenly made much more sense.

He stared down at his hands, watching the fine scars shine as he flexed his fingers. Delicate tendrils of the faintest green, so pale that you'd miss it if the lighting was bad, feathered over the heels of his palms and faded into the creases. The green was always darker when he was Phantom, but turning human had never fully removed the marks. He saw his own reflection in his mind's eye, with this remnant of the portal spiderwebbing up his neck from beneath the collar of his shirt. The Lichtenberg scars mercifully faded the further up they travelled, but a few errant tendrils crept up his throat and lapped thin fingers against his jawline. He'd forgotten that he was bare of illusions right now, and seeing the marks on his hands made him wonder what she really thought of him.

"Do you think I'm a monster?" hs whispered in the gap between her harsh breaths.

"What?" she snapped.

"I can't read minds." When she didn't respond he kept talking, trying to fill the taut silence, to make her _understand._ "Ghosts… people with cores… can sense emotions. I know how you're feeling. It helps me know what to say sometimes, and I can usually tell when people are lying, but it can also really suck. I don't know what people are thinking, only what they're _feeling,_ and it can get confusing but I honestly don't know how to hold conversations without it anymore. I can't turn it off or anything, it's not like invisibility or flight in that way, so it's just how I see the world now."

Her breathing had slowed, and clarity cut through her frustration. "Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh'..." He sighed, and blew his bangs out of his eyes as he leaned back and finally met her gaze. "Look, Val, I'm… I'm the same person you've always known, but if knowing about all this changes your mind, if you're too weirded out to be around me…"

She rolled her eyes. "Shut up, Spooky. Don't go all sappy like that, it ruins the whole hero thing."

He raised an eyebrow and the vice that was squeezing his stomach loosened, just a fraction. "Hero? And here I was thinking that you don't like me."

She snorted and shoved his foot in a playful gesture. "Danny Fenton's too much of a dork to be evil. Mind you, I'm still waiting for an explanation about that dog." She was smiling though, and her mood was the lightest that it had been so far.

Danny relaxed back against his pillows. Maybe her apprehension earlier had been more focused around the whole mind reading misconception, and less because of his messed-up physiology. To be fair, he also really did owe her an explanation. "Yeah, sorry about that," he said. "This first year or so of ghost hunting was wild, and I didn't really expect a stray puppy ghost to be able to turn into a giant dog and cause that much chaos." He held up a hand when she frowned. "In my defense, it was my first time meeting Cujo, he _wasn't_ my dog — I mean, how do you think I'd ever get my parents to agree to _that?_ — and Tucker later found out that Axiom may have… erm… put down their guard dogs when a new security system made them redundant. I don't know if that's where Cujo's from, but it's as good a guess as any." She opened her mouth but he continued before she could talk. "Oh, and I knew you weren't in your suit when I destroyed it, and everything else was really just me messing up like I always do, but I _swear_ that I didn't want to ruin your life. I just have a single brain cell and half the time it's not even working." He held out his hand. "Um… so… friends?"

"Do you always do this when you're stressed?" she grumbled, but smiled as she took it in a gentle shake. "I can't believe you've managed to maintain a secret identity if your filter disappears every time you freak out. But yes, friends."

"Great." He broke their grip and leaned back again. He'd leave that filter comment uncontested — she was right and they both knew it. "Though seriously, leave Vlad alone. He won't stop at anything if he can get away with it."

She grimaced. Opened her mouth. Frowned and closed it. Her frustration mounted again, with a dull sensation of feeling _stuck,_ and Danny stared at her.

"He made you oath not to talk about his secret, didn't he?"

Her scowl was all he needed. "Oath?"

He groaned. "Damn, Val. It's what the ghosts call a sort of… soul agreement? They're pretty rare because it has to be consensual and most ghosts won't put themselves in danger from any hidden loopholes."

"Like the unbreakable curse thing from Harry Potter?"

He leaned his head back until it thumped against the wall. "Yeah, but not exactly. It's more like… a _pressure?_ Like when you try to break it it hurts?" We waved a hand in the vague direction of his chest. "Like when you get really bad heartburn? It's meant for people with cores, and it hurts us a lot, but we _can_ break it if we have to. It just hurts like hell. It's the closest we can get to swearing to tell the truth though, so it's used in a lot of immortal courts, because you can see when it's squeezing someone really tightly. If you can tell me, what did your promise actually say?"

Relief flooded the room when she was able to speak. "I just won't talk about… _things…_ when other people don't know them."

Danny grinned. "Oh, _loophole!_ They only work if you notice them, but this one's good." He winked at her. "I _know_ Vlad's secrets already, more than you do I'd bet, so you should be able to talk about him so long as it's just Team Phantom. And he could have done a lot worse, so count yourself lucky."

She snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. " _Team Phantom._ You guys are such nerds." She tried to keep talking, but her mouth stopped moving. "Ugh! I think you have to tell me what you know before I can talk about it."

Danny nodded. "Probably. I know Vlad's a creepy old halfa named Plasmius, or the Wisconsin Ghost for most people, and that he's the one who supplied you with your ghost hunting gear et _cet_ era et _cet_ era. He wants to kill my dad and marry my mum, but let's not get too much into that because it's gross and I don't want to think about what he'll try while I'm out of it."

"Your mum'll handle him."

He shrugged. "Hopefully. But seriously, _stay away_ from him."

She nodded, and Danny scowled at her and hoped that it would be enough. They sat there like that, simply breathing in the same space, and Danny's core grasped the moment and pricked against his thoughts. The sensation was small but familiar, and he groaned and pressed a hand against his chest.

"You okay?" she asked, leaning closer and placing a hand on his arm. Her uncertainty flickered between them and her fingertips were hot against his bare skin where they peeked out from the bandages.

He nodded and tried not to clench his shirt so tightly in his grip. "Yeah, just… core stuff. It's normal." He kept his voice light and managed to drop his hand away as a deep instinctive pressure dug itself into his soul.

Another human connection. Someone he had to protect, to _keep safe…_

He could only be grateful that these connections seemed limited to people who knew his secret. Such an open connection of mutual honesty and kindness was always the trigger for his core to latch onto a new facet of his obsession, and he knew he should try to fight it but it just felt so _right_ and _whole_ and he wondered if this was why Vlad never tried to overcome such a murderous and controlling attitude…

Valerie's concern rose like fog around him, and her brows pinched delicately in the center. "You sure? You don't want me to get your mum?"

He shook his head and made a show of shifting his wings where they were trapped against the cushions. "I'm good. Just adjusting to things."

Her eyes followed the movement. "You said you'd tell me what happened." She was so close that he could feel the warmth radiating from her, and Danny leaned back against his pillows and gave a half-hearted shrug. Her hand fell away from his arm and she shifted back to her previous spot, and he scratched absently at the scales on the back of his hand.

"Not much to tell really," he said. "The spike things got me in the core, you helped get me home — thanks for that by the way — and then after you left my core sort of had a meltdown because one of the spikes badly damaged the spot responsible for shapeshifting. Then, ta-da," he spread his hands and the black scales along his arms shone blue where they caught the light, "I became even more of a natural abomination. They're white in my ghost form but hopefully I can hide them like I hide my scars." The doorbell rang in the distance, and Danny tried to ignore it. Probably just more reporters or nosy neighbours.

Her emotions were difficult to interpret here, but there was something melancholy that settled over the room, like melting snow or wax that slowly dripped down candles on a birthday cake. Before he could try to figure out what her thoughts might be, footsteps pounded up the stairs, and what was unmistakably a familiar set of combat boots hammered the carpet as they headed down the hallway.

"Daniel James Fenton, get the hell out of bed and eat something!" Sam roared, throwing open the door so hard that it swung around and slammed against the wall.

She froze, and surprise bled through the air from both girls. Tucker appeared behind Sam before anyone could move, pushing past her with a sheepish smile. "Sorry, man," he said, "but your aunt told her you haven't eaten since lunch."

"I've had ectoplasm," Danny defended, hunching his shoulders and trying to look irritated. He couldn't keep the smile off his face though, his core singing at the first sighting of Sam since school the week before. He'd spoken to her on the phone, sure, but _hearing_ and _seeing_ were two very different things, and she looked _safe_ and that was all that mattered…

Sam blinked, and Danny finally registered the uneasy tension in the room as she strode to his bedside and shoved a white box into his hands. "Don't melt it this time," she chided, and stood over him as he pulled a new phone out of the packaging.

"Thanks, Sam," he said, and wrapped the closest arm around her waist in a brief sideways hug before pulling back and handing the phone to Tucker for setting up.

Sam placed a hand on one hip and turned her head to look at Valerie. Danny leaned back, glancing between the two and trying to gauge their thoughts. Valerie sat up straighter. Sam tilted her head. Both of them seemed to be mulling each other over but despite being able to read emotions he was just as confused as he always was when it came to witnessing girls communicate.

Sam broke their staring match with a sigh. "Thanks for catching him," she said, jerking her head in Danny's direction. "Couldn't imagine how much worse this'd be if he'd pancaked."

Tucker snorted, and Danny rolled his eyes. "C'mon, Sam," he whined, "it's not like it was my fault." She lightly shoved his shoulder. It made the ache spike all along that side of his body, and he gave an exaggerated wince. "Ow, Sam. I'm _wounded."_

She sent him a sharp look, and concern snapped through her casual facade. "Sorry."

He shrugged, ignoring the twinge in his shoulders, and patted the bed as Tucker sat in the chair.

Sam shook her head. "I can't stay. I snuck out to bring you the phone and make sure you're actually still alive, but I need to get home before my parents get home. I'm still grounded from that whole protest thing."

"I still have no clue how the cops didn't shoot you," Valerie chimed in.

Sam shrugged and flicked her hair back over her shoulder. It had been getting long lately, and Danny realised that they were all probably in need of a haircut. Ghost hunting really had taken over their lives, pushing out the things of lesser concern.

Valerie would fit right in.

"My dad owns the bank, my mum's in high society, and the police chief _wishes_ that he had as much influence as they do. I've been protesting things for years now, so all the cops know me on sight. I'm a rich, upper-class white girl with influential parents so there's no way anyone was going to hurt me unless I actually set them on fire." She glared, eyes glittering with sudden steel. "I'm only letting you know because I handle all of Team Phantom's expenses. Don't even _think_ about telling anyone. Now, you're going to send me your hospital bills tonight and they'll be paid for by tomorrow morning. Medication scripts as well if you have them."

Danny silently stared at Valerie, wishing that he _could_ read minds, as her shock burst into understanding.

"It's not to trap you with us," Tucker offered when she didn't immediately respond. "You helped Danny, and got hurt doing it. We always take care of the people who help us." He made a pleased sound as the sim compartment popped out of the side of the phone and jimmied the tiny card into its slot.

Valerie worked her lip between her teeth and frowned at all of them in turn. "But… I _shot_ him," she insisted. "Every time I could, I would _hurt_ —"

"Stop." Danny's tailtip twitched beneath the blankets and he tried to keep the growl out of his voice. "We're past that. You're one of us now, if you want it."

"Congratulations," Tucker interrupted in a fake robotic voice, "you are now a level four friend. Welcome to Team Phantom. Please collect your welcome pack on the way out."

Sam's face slackened into an incredulous expression, and she turned to look at Tucker. Danny snorted as she planted her hands on her hips and pure, righteous outrage radiated from her tiny body. "That's it. I quit." She stalked over to the door. "Danny, get better and don't do anything stupid. Valerie, send me your medical stuff. Tucker, you can _walk_ home." She slammed the door behind her, footsteps stomping back down the hallway and thudding as she hammered her way down the stairs. The front door slammed in the distance.

Tucker grinned. "Ah, she loves me."

Danny lobbed a pillow at him. "That was bad, even for you."

He squawked and batted it away. "Dude, I'm holding your new phone!" he whined. "Don't throw stuff at me!"

Valerie looked between the two of them, and Danny wondered how many times he was going to confuse her in a single visit. "Does she always get angry that quickly?"

Tucker shrugged. "Nah, she just gets upset seeing Danny hurt, and she had to leave anyway. Her chauffeur's waiting out the front. She also really likes to be dramatic." He scooted the chair across the carpet so he could pass the phone to Danny. "There, all set up."

"Thanks." Danny thumbed the fingerprint scanner and the phone began to register his print. He caught Valerie's gaze. "You can both stay for dinner if you'd like."

"Your aunt already asked me," Tucker said, "although that's pretty much a given anyway."

Valerie shook her head, her emotional output like a light breeze. "Thanks, but I promised to visit someone at eight."

He scowled, and his core reared within his chest with sudden tension at the thought of where she might be headed. "Val, don't go near him." It wasn't that he didn't trust her, but she was a friend now, a _Team Phantom_ friend, and he needed her to be safe, and he couldn't help her if she got into trouble in his current state…

She scooted away from the wall and got off the bed. "Chill, Spooky. Just because Paulina hates me doesn't mean that everyone does. Star's pretty nice, and we're still friends whenever Paulina's not around."

Danny huffed, but his gut fluttered with warm affection at the second use of what seemed to be a new nickname. "Okay, just… be careful."

She punched his shoulder, lighter than Sam had. It still ached. "Always," she responded, and headed for the door. "Thanks for the talk. See you tomorrow, Tucker." She waved, and then she was gone.

Her footsteps faded away, and Tucker leaned back in the chair and raised an eyebrow. "I have a question," he drawled, amusement licking at Danny's senses.

"Dude, don't say it."

"What was it she called you just then?"

Danny pursed his lips in a mock scowl and concentrated on scanning his other thumb.

Tucker smirked and leaned closer, wheeling the chair forward until his knees bumped the bedframe. "You seriously wouldn't let me call you Casper, but you're fine with her calling you _Spooky?!"_


	15. Anomie

Sam was wrapping a towel around her dripping hair when someone knocked on the bedroom door, loud enough to be heard over the heavy metal blasting from her set of tower speakers. "Coming!" she called, thumbing the volume on her phone so that the music dropped to a more reasonable level. She checked that her lacy black bathrobe was cinched securely around her waist before exiting her ensuite bathroom, sighing at the rush of cooler, steam-free morning air that streamed through the open bedroom windows.

When she opened the door Valerie was standing on the other side, hands shoved in the pockets of her skirt and shoulders hunched in obvious discomfort. Sam swept out her bare arm in invitation. "Hey, come in."

She looked around as she stepped over the threshold, and Sam closed the door and made a show of casually leaning back against it. Her room was probably bigger than Valerie's entire apartment, and although she wasn't usually petty enough to flaunt her wealth, she felt a small spark of satisfaction at the way Valerie turned on the spot, mouth slightly open and eyes wide as she took in the expansive living space. Sam had been trying to be nice to Valerie, but it was still that tiny bit of revenge to see the person who had once looked down her nose at their 'loser' group be so out of her depth.

After milking the moment for another few seconds, Sam pushed off the door and headed for her closet. "Sorry," she said, "I didn't realise the time. Give me a moment." She waved her hand in a general gesture. "Sit anywhere, I'll only be a minute."

She didn't wait for a response, ducking into the large walk-in wardrobe and shutting the door firmly behind her. She'd already chosen what to wear for the day, so it was only a matter of quickly slipping on the outfit and lacing her black boots up to her knees before heading out to re-join her guest.

Valerie stared from where she perched on the window seat. "You can't be serious."

"Dead serious," Sam retorted. When Valerie didn't so much as smile, she rolled her eyes and tried again. "C'mon, dead serious? We're Team Phantom, the morbid humour's a given."

Valerie huffed. "Still, that's a bit much, don't you think?"

Sam kept her expression innocently confused and made a show of looking down at herself. "What, this? I'm just a cute pastel goth girl expressing myself."

She shook her head, slowly, like Mr Lancer did when Danny was late for the fifth time in a week. "You'll never get away with that."

She shrugged and headed back to the bathroom. "I don't mean to," she confessed. "I just want to give people something to talk about aside from the obvious. It could always be worse, y'know — it's not like I'm wearing any of my leather corsets or anything." She threw her head forward and towelled her hair vigorously. Once satisfied with the preliminary drying, she threw the towel over the edge of the bathtub and grabbed the hairbrush and dryer. "Sorry, give me about ten minutes."

"You know, I don't think I've ever seen you without makeup before," Valerie commented, moving to stand at the doorway. "It's not a bad look, just surprising… What. The. Hell."

Sam smirked at Valerie's gaping reflection in the mirror and switched the hairdryer on. "I'll be the talk of the school," she preened, running the brush through her new undercut and blasting it with a stream of hot air.

"You'll be suspended."

She shrugged. "Trouble's sort of the goal. The more people focus on me, the better."

Valerie ran a hand down her face with a groan. "Why'd you rope me into this?"

"Stop griping." Sam jerked her head in the direction of her bedroom. "You said you wanted to help, so go have a look at the stuff on my desk. Hopefully it fits."

"If it matches your outfit then I'm not wearing it."

She rolled her eyes. "Just go try it on. I'm sure you can put up with it for one day."

Valerie disappeared back through the door and Sam concentrated on making sure her hair dried without going too frizzy. She still wasn't sure this would work, despite her bravado, but it was the only thing she could think of to keep attention away from Danny on his first day back aside from an all-out brawl. The only reason she didn't choose the latter option was that Danny probably wouldn't be too happy with her for it, and she struggled enough with social relationships already without making one of her only friends mad at her.

Things had gotten easier over the past couple of weeks, but having Valerie visit for the first time was weird in a way she couldn't quite identify. Her mother had driven past them when they were walking home the other day and was thrilled that Sam finally had a girl hanging out with her, who was feminine and wore sensible clothing, even if they weren't exactly the newest or most expensive outfits. In fact, Valerie's wardrobe was pretty much the same as it had been for the past couple of years, and Sam wondered if she ever really got to buy new things. She probably just continually tried to salvage jeans and shirts from second-hand discount racks.

If Valerie wasn't so damned proud then Sam would offer to take her shopping, but right now, this was the only way to help her new friend update her look a bit. Sure, Valerie hunted ghosts in a cool suit and all, but she still wore those tired old clothes Paulina had helped her pick back when they were still friends.

Sam clicked off the hairdryer and began to apply her makeup. She'd go darker on the eyes and lips than she usually did, to offset her hair a bit. She had to rock this look for all it was worth. There was nothing really going on at school that she could protest about, and people tended to ignore that anyway, so this was hopefully enough to keep attention away from where she didn't want it.

Valerie came back just as Sam was applying the final touches, and they both looked each other over approvingly. "Black looks good on you," Sam decided.

Valerie shrugged. "I need a bit of colour in my wardrobe," she defended.

"Hence the shirt."

Her head tilted in the approximation of a nod. "Yeah, I guess. You sure it'll work?"

She flashed a grin, all teeth and confidence. "Sure it will. I get a dress code infringement and cause a scene, Tucker has his fun, and Paulina'll get stroppy because you're obviously not even trying to win her approval anymore."

"She's not that shallow."

Sam rolled her eyes. "We'll see," she said, with the carefully restrained tone that parents use when trying to hide amusement from their children. "This is the first time you're not wearing the fashion style she picked out with you since they ditched you. You just have to act like none of the A-Listers even exist."

Valerie shrugged, but her lips pressed together as she tried to hold back a smile. "I don't know why you think this'll work, but sure, let's give it a go."

Sam nodded decisively and ushered her back into the bedroom, grabbing her purple spider backpack off the floor. She took another look at Valerie's new outfit, placing her hands on her hips and giving a satisfied nod. "You should try going goth. It'd suit you."

Valerie grabbed her bag from where she'd left it by the window seat. "I'm in ripped jeans and a band shirt. I don't think I've ever worn so much black in my entire life! If I knew that's why you asked what punk bands I like I don't know if I would've told you."

"Well, you rock the look. If your suit wasn't stored in your bracelets I'd get you to take them off, but I guess we have to work with what we've got."

Valerie frowned. "They're the smallest accessory I could fit it in."

Sam rolled her shoulders as though her backpack was going to drag her to the floor. "Tell me about it. Danny's so lucky, the only thing he ever has to carry is the Thermos. Which ends up in my bag, like, all the time."

Valerie snorted and followed Sam out the door. "What are you gonna do if your mother sees you wearing that?"

"She's already out." The heels of her boots clicked on marble as they descended the sweeping staircase. "We'd be using the window otherwise."

They crossed the foyer without incident, stepping out the front door into sunlight. Sam smirked as her bangs practically glowed in her peripheral vision. This was lighter than she'd ever done her hair before, and was so far beyond what the school deemed acceptable that she was bound to get in trouble as soon as she stepped foot in the building. Couple the new hairstyle with the 'inappropriate' slogan on her shirt, and she knew she wouldn't escape without a string of detentions. It was for the greater good though! With Danny returning for the first time in weeks, she'd do anything she could to keep him out of the spotlight. He said he had a handle on hiding everything with his illusion things, but he always said he was better when he wasn't and she didn't want too much attention to cause a slip in his control. Sometimes, when Dash pushed him into a locker particularly hard, or when Wes hounded him with conspiracy theories, Danny's illusions wavered, and his scars flickered through. Most people were just too oblivious to notice.

Now that he was hiding a lot more than just a bunch of scars, Sam didn't want to risk any slip-ups.

Sunlight glanced off metal as Valerie's suit flowed over her body, and her hoverboard folded out from the soles of her boots. "Here," she offered, holding out her hand.

Sam allowed herself to be hoisted onto the board and hooked her arms around Valerie's waist. The trip was short but the rush of air was exhilarating, and Sam closed her eyes and sighed deeply as gravity tugged at her gut. They arrived without incident, and Valerie landed in one of the side streets that Danny regularly used.

Tucker was waiting for them, leaning against the wall and playing with his phone. He looked up as they arrived and gave a little wave before his mouth fell open. "Are you trying to get suspended?" he gasped as Sam dismounted.

"If it distracts people from Danny, then sure." Sam rolled her eyes as his mouth opened and closed like a dying fish. "Besides, I needed a haircut anyway."

"You're insane," he muttered. "Did you tell her she's insane?"

Valerie shrugged as her suit tucked itself back into her bracelets. "Not like she'd listen to me anyway. And how is it that I'm the only one not dressed like I want to be kicked out of class?"

Sam snorted as Tucker clapped a hand over his heart, glasses slipping down his face as he faked offence. "I'll have you know, this shirt is a classic!"

"And banned on school grounds, after last year."

"That's the point, though, isn't it?" He pushed his glasses back up his nose and stepped closer, reaching out to touch Sam's hair with a look of wonder on his face. "Dude, how did you manage this? Your hair was still black yesterday!"

She smirked and swatted him away. "You forget who you're talking to."

"I still don't think this'll work," Valerie muttered. "Nobody's seen him since he got shot. People'll want to talk to him. It'll suck for a few days, then die down, like it always does."

Sam rolled her eyes and made a show of adjusting her backpack. "It'll keep some people off his back a bit," she said. "The last thing we need is for him to be distracted enough that his illusions fail. If his powers mess up, we can cause a scene so people don't notice, and if anyone tries to bother him I'll punch them in the face. Now can we go? My bag's super heavy today." She headed for the end of the street, not bothering to check if they were following her.

Danny would probably be disappointed if he were here to sense her irritation, but Sam was trying to get along with Valerie. It was just hard to break old habits, that's all.

She stepped out of the alleyway and into the sun. There was a steady stream of students walking to school, and Sam grinned when a couple of freshmen jumped out of her path with looks of absolute horror. They hurried past, whispering and glancing back once they were at a safe distance.

Tucker and Valerie fell into step beside her, and the gaggle of students parted like the red sea as the trio approached the school. Her boots clicked against the front steps and she felt invincible, holding her chin high and looping her arms through her friends' as they walked inside the building.

They made it to their lockers without incident, and Sam dumped all her books except the ones she needed for her first class. The ectoguns stayed in her bag, but she pulled out a shirt and put it in her locker, for when she was inevitably sent to change. Sure, it was fun, and certain to get her in trouble, but she already didn't like the way people whooped and jeered when they managed to read what her shirt said.

Maybe she could stage a protest after all…

Tucker nudged her shoulder, breaking her out of the daydream of initiating an anti-discrimination protest before first period. "Ready?" he asked.

She shrugged and slammed her locker closed as the bell rang. "Let's do this." The two of them walked in the direction of their first class, Valerie joining them as they passed her locker. They reached the room before anybody else, and Sam tried to keep the smile off her face. Maybe this was a stupid idea, but it was better than sitting back and doing nothing.

As agreed, Danny was already sitting at his desk, looking completely and utterly normal. Not a single shining scale in sight. He looked up from his phone as they entered, eyes going wide and mouth falling open. "Uh… what?!"

She gave him her biggest, most innocent smile, and dumped her bag on the desk next to his. "Morning, Danny."

He blinked, and small, strangled sounds worked their way out of his throat as he looked at each of them in turn, but then Danny got a proper look at Sam and Tucker's shirts and moaned. "You… oh man, I thought we burned those!"

Valerie rolled her eyes. "They're crazy," she insisted.

Sam leaned against her desk, flipping her significantly shorter hair like she was in one of those stupid shampoo commercials. "But Danny, I needed a haircut!"

"You're gonna get suspended," he sighed. "As soon as Lancer gets here, I give it ten seconds before he kicks you out."

"What the hell?"

Sam smiled sweetly at the doorway as a gaggle of their classmates stood there in shock. Danny shrank back in his seat at their appearance, ducking his head and pretending to be busy with his phone. They filtered into the room, tittering and commenting on her sudden change in appearance. A few people wished Danny a quiet welcome back, but with a smiling Sam perched on her desk looking like a walking detention, they kept a wide berth.

Somehow, unbelievably, it seemed to be working, and when Danny's shoulders visibly relaxed Sam deemed it safe enough to move into her chair. She still smiled whenever someone caught her eye, and they quickly looked away every time. A smiling Sam was a dangerous Sam, and none of them would really want to be in her firing line this early on a Monday morning.

None of them, of course, except a certain conspiracy theorist.

Wes Weston stopped so abruptly in the doorway that Nathan walked right into his back. He stumbled into the room, spluttering as he pointed at the group. "Um… what?!"

Sam smiled at him, soft and predatory, and she could see the hesitation in the way he paused, eyes widening and the lump in his throat bobbing as he swallowed. She didn't need Danny's ability to sense emotions to read this flicker of uncertainty, and it bolstered her confidence. She could pull this off, she could.

It took a moment, but Wes regrettably overcame his reservations. He dropped his bag on his empty desk and stalked down the aisle until he was looming over Danny. "Fenton."

Danny leaned his chin in one hand, using the other to scroll through his phone. His invisible tail curled around Sam's ankle, and she leaned slightly closer, brushing against his arm. Sure, he appeared nonplussed, but the way he leaned into her touch was all the proof she needed of his building tension.

"Beat it, Weston," she snapped. Danny didn't need the stress of Wes so early in the day, not when he had to keep a perfect illusion over his scales and his extra limbs invisible for the next six hours.

The idiot ignored her. "Where have you been, hm?" He narrowed his eyes, and his tone was low with the threat of confidence. "You know, it's so strange. The day you got shot by the Guys in White, by a ghost-hunting gun, Phantom disappeared for weeks."

She clenched her fists in her lap as the room went quiet. Danny tensed beside her. "It's too early for this," he grumbled.

Wes snorted. "What, you don't deny being a ghost? You'll finally admit—"

"Maybe he just doesn't want to talk about how he literally had holes punched through his organs?" Sam snapped with a caustic glare. "He almost died, so maybe you could stop reminding him of his trauma on his first day back?"

Next to her, Danny kept his head down, and Sam wanted nothing more than to slap that smug grin off Wes' face. It was okay, they'd planned for something like this. They'd just follow their script…

Wes slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out a photograph. "You sure that's all?" he taunted, smugly waving it close enough so that they could see the image of Danny Fenton pulling a shirt over his head. The photo was shot through his half-open curtains, at an angle that would have been impossible from the ground. Wes must have climbed the tree across the road to be able to see Danny standing in the middle of the second-storey bedroom.

Something in the photo caught Sam's eye and her hand tightened around Danny's wrist.

Two black wings were partially unfolded from his scaly back.

"I only got this one this morning," Wes crowed. "He can shapeshift, and last time I checked, that's not something that living people can do."

The rapidly filling classroom murmured with quiet laughter. Sam hoped that it was aimed at the absurdity of the claim.

"Oh, come on," Valerie cut in, "you totally photoshopped that." She leaned over from the desk behind Sam and plucked the picture from his hand. "This is such an amateur job. Do you think we're stupid?"

Wes audibly ground his teeth as some of the other students tittered. "You're just protecting him!" he shouted, pointing dramatically at Valerie. Sam watched warily, slipping her arm through Danny's and squeezing his wrist. He'd tensed the moment he'd seen the picture, and she really needed him to stay calm right now. This was unexpected, and he never really did well with unexpected threats to his secret.

"Why would I protect a ghost?" Valerie was saying.

"Put on your suit then!" he shot back. "Show me your ghost tracker! That'll prove it!"

"Oh, but I'm not allowed to use it when there isn't a threat to student safety," she drawled, and Sam couldn't hold back a chuckle at the sheer condescension that oozed from Valerie's voice. "If I recall, you were one of the people who insisted I have new school rules, especially for me."

Wes' face was slowly turning red beneath his freckles, the colour seeping down his neck and over his ears. "I'm tired of you people making a fool out of me! I know what the truth is, so show me your tracker!"

"Enough."

Everyone went still as ice cracked in Danny Fenton's usually carefree voice, and the room fell silent once again. Wes' forehead creased and he opened his mouth, but Danny spoke first. "I almost died, Wes. Not only that, but a video of me bleeding out on the pavement went viral, and people keep reuploading it every time it gets taken down. I'm sure you've seen it?"

"Yeah, but—"

"Great," Danny interrupted, looking past Wes to the rest of the room. "All of you saw it?" There was barely a moment for them to nod. "Great." He glared at the spluttering boy standing beside him. "Everyone's seen me practically bleed to death on the ground. And guess what? I think we can all agree that I'm not dead, because you all saw in the video that I bleed red."

It was like time stopped, and for a moment Sam wondered if Clockwork had intervened, but Wes' mouth opened and closed like he couldn't figure out how to break the silence and the motion was enough to get her moving. Danny had grown too tense, and she needed to get Wes away from him now. "You can go," she said, staring straight into the idiot's wide green eyes.

Wes didn't move. The tail around her ankle was so tight that Sam's toes were starting to tingle, and she subtly shifted her foot. The pressure lessened, and she gently pulled her arm out of his grasp and stood up. Nobody spoke, their eyes following her movements. "Go on." She moved around the desk, placing herself between the two boys. "I think you've caused enough PTSD for one day."

To his credit, he took a moment to back down, but after a breath or two his shoulders dropped and he took the photo back from Valerie. "You're just his tramp," he snapped, giving her a final glare.

She didn't mean to, she really didn't mean to, but before Sam registered what she was doing her knuckles cracked across his jaw.

"Samantha Manson!" a dreadfully familiar voice bellowed from the doorway as Mr Lancer stepped into the room.

Wes reeled back, sprawling against Star's desk behind him and sending the contents of her open pencil case scattering across the floor. He clapped his hands over his mouth and made a choked noise as sudden tears slipped from the corners of his eyes. Tears were a natural reaction to being punched in the mouth, but it was still so satisfying for Sam to see.

Their teacher dumped an armful of papers on his desk and glared at her. "Go to the office and wait for me there," he snapped. Ooh, she could practically feel the suspension just from the way he looked at her. Funny. He hadn't even had time to put his coffee down, or notice her inappropriate shirt or pastel lilac hair. Nope, she was going to get suspended for slugging Wes Weston in the face, and as her knuckles began to sting and blood dripped off his chin she couldn't have been happier.

"He deserved it," Tucker interrupted, standing so quickly that his chair slammed into the desk behind him. "He was teasing Danny about what happened, and saying he was a ghost again, and photoshopped a picture of him. He also called Sam a tramp. If she didn't punch him, I was going to."

Mr Lancer pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. "Sam, Wes, Tucker. Go to the office. Now."

"Why me?" Tucker whined. "I didn't hit anyone!"

Their teacher looked bone-achingly weary, and the bell to begin the first class of the week hadn't even rung yet. "Your shirt."

Tucker made a show of looking down at himself. "This old thing? Mr Lancer, it's a classic!"

"Now."

"But it's not gay if he's dead!"

The class erupted into laughter. Even after all this time, the joke was still great. Sam wound back to her seat and grabbed her bag, smirking at the memory of how almost the entire school had exploded with the meme about a year ago. Back when Wes had first started spreading his theories Tucker had the brilliant idea of making it seem like the poor guy just had a crush on Phantom. It became bad enough to warrant a total ban, and she inwardly admitted that it had been maybe a little too mean, but at least nobody had taken Wes seriously after that.

Sam and Tucker both wearing the shirt now, with everything that had just happened, was the perfect amount of irony. It was probably why Wes had insulted her as well, come to think of it, but she shook out her fist and grinned anyway.

She gave Danny's shoulder a reassuring squeeze as Mr Lancer pointed to the door. "Just go," he sighed, running a hand over his balding head with an exasperation that was usually reserved for the last period of the day.

Valerie slid into the vacated seat next to Danny, and as Sam led the way to the door, she hoped that their new friend would be able to keep Danny steady without them.

She almost regretted getting kicked out so quickly, but the sight of Wes with blood pouring between his fingers after a year of harassing them was absolutely worth it.

She flashed the class a smile, gave a jaunty little wave, and stepped out the door.

* * *

 **For any readers confused about this random character, go google "who the heck is Wes?"**

 **Thanks for reading!**


End file.
